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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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JOHN P. THORNTON. 



TRAINING 



FOR 



HEALTH, STRENGTH, SPEED, 



AND 



AGILITY. 



FOR THE INSTRUCTION OF AMATEURS 
AND OTHERS. 



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JOHN P. n"HORNTON. 




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NEW YORK: 
EXCELSIOR PUBLISHING HOUSE. 

1890. 



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Copyright, 1890, by 
EXCELSIOR PUBLISHING HOUSE. 



PREFACE. 



The aim of this volume is to explain, firstly : what 
are normal physical conditions; secondly: how these 
are capable of improvement by exercise, providing the 
efforts made are carried out in a scientific manner. 

As this work is written for the use of amateurs, it is 
addressed to an educated public. To such all rule of 
thumb methods of training would be irksome. An in- 
telligent man always wants to know the why and the 
wherefore of everything he is told to do. He naturally 
declines being considered as an automaton. If exact 
information is then afforded, there can be no question, 
but that just because he knows what he is about, im- 
proving mental and physical conditions follow. 

No attempt has been made to teach the peculiarities 
of any one special exercise. A man can learn some lit- 
tle as to how he should run, or jump, or row, from the 
many excellent books written on those special subjects. 
There is, however, no royal road to getting strong. 
Time is a necessary element for physical development. 
To acquire Health, Strength, Speed, and Agility is 

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4 PREFACE. 

always possible, and it is for this purpose that this vol- 
ume has been written. No athletic sport in favor to- 
day has been omitted, and the preparatory methods, 
those which will best serve the amateur, are presented. 

Care has been taken to point out what are the disturb- 
ances arising from either excess of work, or from exercise 
taken in a wrong direction. '* Training for Health, 
Strength, Speed, and Agility'' may be deemed over- 
cautious, but there is no one practically acquainted with 
athletics who does not deplore the many accidents which 
have fallen under his own observation. It is not broken 
limbs that are regretable, because fractures and sprains 
are by no means singular to the gymnasium or the track. 
What is meant by ^'accidents'' are those arising from 
expenditures of forc-e by those who are immature, and 
the lasting shocks given to systems. Fully aware of 
these responsibilities, an author would be culpable did he 
not give expression to what he thought were the dan- 
gers of over-training, not in relationship to performance, 
but as influencing health. 

Particular allusion has been directed toward the keep- 
ing men and women, who do not train, in good health 
by means of moderate exercise. How children should 
be taught a natural development is also presented. The 
past and present systems for the prevention of obesity 
are given, and methods explained ; how growth of fat 
can be prevented, considerations of health always being 
remembered. 

This work is the outcome of many years of practical 



PREFACE. 5 

experience, where how to train was guided by study, 
not exclusively acquired in the gymnasium or on 
the track. 

"Training for Health, Strength, Speed, and Agility " 
will be found not alone useful to amateurs, but will give 
its aid to teachers of physicul culture, and to parents 
and principals of schools. 

John P. Thornton. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

The All-Around Man 9 

Advice to Teachers and Pupils 15 

The Influence of Work 25 

Lung-Power 34 

Excess of Work 43 

The Body as a Machine 52 

Fatigue 57 

Improving Conditions 62 

Effects of Careless Exercise — Deformities 6y 

Training 80 

Fat 85 

Food 98 

Air—Ventilation 123 

Sleep 128 

Clothing 133 

Work 138 

Training with Reference to Speed 1 56 

Sprinting 157 

Long Distance Running 160 

Hurdling 162 

Walking 165 

Training for the Running High Jump 168 

Training for Pole Vaulting 174 

Training FOR Cycling... 177 

Training for Base-Ball 181 

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8 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Training for Oarsmen and Scullers 183 

Work for Heavy Men 196 

Putting the Shot 197 

Throwing the Hammer 200 

The Tug of War 203 

Training for Boxing 207 

Training for Wrestling 211 

Training for Long Distance Work 215 

Exercise for Young Men who have never been at 

A Gymnasium 217 

Exercise for Men past Middle Life 218 

Exercise for Women.. ' 223 

Gymnastics for Children 227 

Blisters of the Feet 233 

Boils and Carbuncles 234 

Rupture 235 

Sprains 235 

Ulceration 236 

Bleeding at the Nose 236 

Sunstroke 237 

Drowning 238 

Liniments v. 240 

Indurating Mixtures 241 

The Track— How to Make It 242 

Axioms for Amateur Athletes 245 

Definition of an Amateur Athlete 251 

Amateur Athletic Union of the United States — 254 
Records 255 



TRAINING 



CHAPTER I. 

THE ALL-AROUND MAN. 

Looking over the man — Men adapted to special work — The man 
in perfect training — What he ought to be — What he is — The 
undefined quality — The mistakes made — What are our limi- 
tations — Will power — The all-around man — The ambitious 
athlete. 

I AM in the training-ground, and my attention is 
called to a young athlete. Some one in charge says 
to me, " There is a man in perfect training.'' If I am 
conversant with looking over men, as is a horse-trainer 
with blooded stock, my reply might be, " Yes, that 
man looks all right. At his age, he is likely to im- 
prove. I should think he has resources which can be 
called upon for great efforts.'' I might add, *' I would 
be careful, however, not to push him any more, for he 
seems to be at his best — that is, as far as looks go. 
What is he in training for ? " 

If I am familiar with athletic exercises, I ought to be 
able to place the man as to capability, for certain general 
lines of performance, but neither am I or anybody else 
so absolutely proficient, as to put a man at once in the 

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10 TRAINING. 

class to which he exactly belongs ; nevertheless, I can 
settle in my mind several lines of performances more or 
less allied in which he might excel. 

The trainer answering my query, gives me the infor- 
mation. His reply may be, " That is our best hurdler, 
or our crack sprinter, or our cleverest jumper/' Having 
that much given me, which of course is a great deal, I 
take a more careful look at the man. Having satisfied 
myself first as to his general development, I look at 
the head and eyes of the man, in order to find out 
if he seems possessed of will and determination. I 
must confess, that any study of physiognomy may be 
delusive, still I do not omit it. What I scrutinize par- 
ticularly is the man from the waist down to his toes, 
because I have been told that he is in training for speed 
as a runner. It is below the waist that I want to see the 
higher physical development of the man. I require a 
certain balance of muscular power, distributed evenly 
all over him. If his wind mechanism is bad and lung 
power limited, my opinion will be that he will have lit- 
tle staying power. If the chest capacity were good, and 
legs and thighs not first-rate, the chances of his being 
successful would be but slight. 

I do not care much about the height of the man, that 
is within certain limits, because both big and little men 
have been wonderful performers. I am, however, in- 
clined to prefer the man, for field athletics at least, who 
does not exceed five feet ten inches, and for the reason, 
that distinct muscular power, not being augmentable by 



TRAINING. II 

exercise in proportion to length or breadth, the bulk of 
an additional inch remaining, being a positive fixed 
quantity, this extra weight to carry or to propel, is 
something which handicaps, in some small measure, he 
who possesses it. 

I vary then my appreciation of the man, when I 
understand what he is trying to excel in. From the 
above, which everybody can understand, it will be at 
once understood that men must train for special per- 
formances. 

The ideal definition of a man in perfect training 
would be an individual who by judicious exercise had 
obtained uniform development of muscles. It ought to 
mean too, something more, as to the performance of 
this highly-gifted individual. It would be, that he could 
successfully accomplish any kind of work. In actual ob- 
servation, however, we find that although there are many 
superb ^* all-around men,'' it is rather exceptional to find 
that any one man ever can accomplish more than a sin- 
gle thing with exceptional excellence. To account for 
this, we must face the fact, that there are peculiarities 
of human build, or of muscular individuality, which ren- 
der the one man capable of doing something better than 
his fellows. 

Mr. Myers' muscular development might through care- 
ful measurements have been presented in fractions of an 
inch, but that never would have accounted for his wonder- 
ful bursts of speed. No tape measure would indicate the 
reasons why Mr. Page can clear a higher bar than another 



12 TRAINING. 

man. General measurements may be about the same 
between the first and the second man, but the particu- 
lar, the special reason why A is a fraction or second 
quicker than B, or C can jump an inch higher than D, 
no one ever will determine. 

Such a blunder nobody is likely to make, as of trying 
to have a natural sprinter take a place in a tug of 
war team. Still many men waste their time in at- 
tempting to do exactly that thing for which they are 
physically incapacitated. I mean, of course, when 
with laudable but mistaken ambition, young men try 
to take first places, so as to get their names on the 
record. 

I often see in training clever lads working the life out of 
them in endeavoring to overcome their own bodily inertia. 
Endowed with normal muscular power, they believe 
that by exercise, they can impart that increased strength 
to their arms, which will finally overcome the dead bulk 
of their bodies. Their arm strength increases, yet no 
one can accomplish the impossible! If they are wise> 
then, they should leave feats of agility to lighter men. 
It is just in cases of this kind that the professor of 
athletic exercises explains to pupils the futility of such 
work. Carried out so as not to overtax strength, such 
exercise may do no harm, but if insisted on to too great 
a degree, the effects are unquestionably bad. 

Like in mental occupation, or literary work, the best 
thing for a man who aims to excel in athletic sports, is 
for him to know at once what are his limitations. He 



TRAINING. 13 

may find out that his field is curtailed. He may do 
one thing well, but only that one thing. * 

I am positive that no book will ever give a man, save 
in glittering generalities, the exact kind of work he is 
best adapted for. It will ever escape the most gifted of 
writers to describe the indefinable element called pluck, 
or grit, or that will-power which accomplishes miracles. 
To call it as a mental power, when physiological consid- 
erations are borne in mind, is contrary to science ; but 
yet, how otherwise account for what seems nothing 
short of an electrical discharge of force ? Since muscu- 
lar power is called upon by the will, it must be from the 
brain that the action is transmitted. 

I have presented the perfectly trained man to be one 
who contains within himself a thoroughly developed 
muscular power ; and the supposition is, that all the 
thews and sinews of this man will respond to every call. 
This is an ideal condition. The man is not special, for 
it must be remembered that his powers are general. 

This " all-around condition,'* difficult to arrive at, can 
only be brought about by long, diligent, and careful 
methods of preparation. 

It is not my intention in a book on physical culture 
to emphasize any particular line of work, giving it the 
preference above others. We all of us have our likes and 
dislikes. As far as the pleasure of it goes, my delight is 
greatest when I see a foot-race, and I am (I cannot 
help it) quite indifferent to a walking-match. No one 
appreciates more than I the work the walker under- 



14 TRAINING. 

goes, and I know that, to win, depends on perfec- 
tion of form, with pluck and endurance carried to its 
maximum, and yet the exact ** heel-and-toe movement ** 
is nothing else than a hampered gait. The man, to go 
fast and long, is forced to bring into play certain move- 
ments, with a huge expenditure of muscle, which nature 
never intended for such a precise purpose. To encour- 
age the walker, the trainer will lope alongside of his 
pupil. I have walked fairly fast myself in a match, and 
I remember my coach running alongside me going easi- 
ly, his toe taking the natural spring from the ground, 
and his crying to me, " Now you are putting me to 
all I know how.*' I was, however, always saying to 
myself, *^ How stupid it is for me to be working my 
life out learning ao unnatural way of going over the 
ground, wriggling my hips all out of shape, when 
I could get along so much faster and pleasanter if I 
were to run.'* I have, then, my preferences, but in a 
work of a general character like this, I shall do my best 
to give every exercise its full value. 

I believe in the all-around man. I have always thought 
that the method of tempering good steel was applicable 
to the physical education of the man. Once (my subject 
being young) that I succeeded in bringing up a certain 
temper or efficiency, then I have thought I could make at 
will hard or elastic, rigid or supple metal out of the man. 
What kind of an instrument he was to be fashioned into 
became then less a matter of chance. The man's own 
tastes took him into the lead he was to follow. 



CHAPTER 11. 

ADVICE TO TEACHERS AND PUPILS. 

The advantage of varied exercises — The duties of the teacher — 

Selection of pupils — What is exercise — Muscular force — The 

stimulant — Our every action tells on the muscular system — 

djirfihel two sets of muscles— What are antagonistic muscles — 

Elegance is excellence. 

Need I say that no man ever was made strong by 
book-reading alone? Close study, with its confinement, 
induces positive deterioration of muscular tissue. Over- 
brain-work reduces the strength of the student. The 
value of books which treat in a sensible manner physical 
development, lies in two directions : First, particular 
exercises are explained, which help to build up the 
system ; and secondly, the reasons why such and such 
things are done, are made clear. Of the two, the latter 
is of the greater importance. Illustrations of the de- 
vices employed, the weights, the pulleys, the apparatus, 
are good enough in their way. A visit of five minutes 
to a gymnasium makes not one mechanism, but twenty 
of them understandable at once, when hours spent in the 
examination of wood-cuts would not suffice. 

In the best equipped gymnasiums, the reasons why 
certain exercises are to be carried out in preference to 

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l6 TRAINING. 

others are not always made clear to the beginner. A 
professor of physical exercise is generally a very thor- 
oughly occupied man. It is only of late years that he 
is an educated man, able to give the reasons for certain 
kinds of exercises adapted to individuals. With a nu- 
merous class of pupils, where different conditions exist, 
the teacher can ill spare the time necessary for long 
explanations. He may be more or less right in consid- 
ering his class as a unit and in trying to bring it up to 
one general average. 

I am positive that the public school method, which 
takes a low average as a standard, though it may not 
bring forth the highest development of the pupil, is, 
however, not wanting in wisdom. Lads (I am writing of 
school-boys) may be pushed beyond their powers, and 
their future natural development is thus impaired. 

I think the trouble with boys of normal powers who 
are ambitious to excel in manly sport, is this, that they 
are urged too much. They want restraining, not egg- 
ing on. 

The best professors of physical culture have often 
told me that to arrive at anything like a satisfactory 
result, the limit of a gymnasium class of youths should 
not be above six. There are many simple exercises in 
which no account need be taken of numbers, but for 
careful work they think that six is all they can manage 
at a time. 

" I spend,*' said to me the most conscientious of pro- 
fessors, " hours over my class of six. I first pick them 



TRAINING. 17 

out from the mass, assorting lads in small squads, accord- 
ing to age, size, and build. I do not begin until I have 
taken into consideration more than the outside make of 
the lads. I look them all over, and go as far as strip- 
ping them. I never should forgive myself if the slight- 
est indication to heart disease escaped me. If I only- 
know that it exists, then I am not afraid of it. I even 
hope to cure it in time, but I want to be careful. I 
sometimes make curious mistakes. I find out the more 
I think I know, the less I actually do know. For in- 
stance, there is Mr. G-^ — . He has just broken one of 
the records at an intercollegiate match. I had him as a 
lad when he was thirteen. He is twenty to-day. His 
was the poorest physical development then you ever 
saw. Pulmonary weakness on the father's side. I was 
afraid too of other organic troubles. I was exceedingly 
careful of him, just as anxious as if he had been a deli- 
cate girl. What was best in him was his courage. My 
difficulty was to hold him in. If I had let him have his 
own course, like a candle with too great a draught, 
he would have been burnt out at once. Gradually his 
condition improved. I was stricter with him than ever 
when the change for the better came. He became more 
manageable as he grew in years, and you see the result — 
a big event won by him — which he never could have 
carried out if he were not to-day absolutely sound. 
Nevertheless, I am still cautious with him. He wrote 
me a letter giving me some particulars of the contest, 
and I have replied to him praying him only to try and 



1 8 TRAINING. 

keep in form, and not to over-tax himself. I wish I 
could explain to my own satisfaction, why it is that tak- 
ing two pupils as nearly alike as can be in a physical 
way, one goes ahead under the same work and the other 
makes no progress. I am certain that mental energy 
has much to do with perfect physical ability.*' 

This brings me to those considerations which are nec- 
essary to be understood when the study of bodily exer- 
cise is made, with the end of perfecting the health, or 
the skill, or the power, of the individual. 

What is after all work carried out by means of the 
body ? Whether in an amateurish way I hoe my flower- 
garden for an hour in the morning, or my neighbor the 
kitchen-gardener plants cabbage, for the same time, the 
muscular power exerted by both of us is practically the 
same. But the differences are those of our individual- 
ities. I work with my hoe for an hour, because I like 
to do it. My neighbor labors over his field, because he 
has to. He may wear himself out. There is no neces- 
sity for my exhausting my forces. I can stop when I 
please, for I am at play. If fatigued, I can take my 
rest just as long as I please. 

My neighbor cannot afford to rest. Whether it rains 
or shines, he must keep on at his task. He may be over- 
worked before he began his toil with his cabbages. The 
labor may be violent ; he must not stop. My little 
work which I call exercise, has made me feel all the 
better for it. His heavy labor may have done him no 
harm ; nevertheless if he has not had food enough, or 



TRAINING. 19 

of the proper kind, or his sleep has been bad, he is more 
hkely to suffer than I. 

In a physiological point of view, then, the bodily ex- 
ercise taken by the ditcher, and the young collegian who 
spins over his hurdles, are both the same, for exercise 
and labor are synonymous terms. In one case, if a man 
works too hard and is ill-fed, he breaks down. On the 
other side, a man may expend a vast amount of muscu- 
lar power, and having his losses made up by means of 
proper food, good housing, and requisite rest, he can 
keep to his work with no inconvenience, and finish a 
herculean task in almost as good a condition as when he 
started at it. 

I do not care to enter into a too lengthy study of 
the muscles. Generally the muscles may be described as 
bundles of fibres, having two extremities. The muscles 
are closely united, and are attached to the bones. All 
muscles are contractile. They shorten themselves. A 
tension, or a pull, then takes place on the bone. It is 
the brain power that starts the pull or improvises the 
pulley. I want to move my arm. My arm moves be- 
cause my brain wills it. On the flexed muscles of my 
arm I put a 20-pound weight. I have not exercised 
those particular muscles, and the weight refuses to rise, 
any more than had my arm been made of wood. Will 
is worth nothing at all in this case. I have, however, 
exercised these particular muscles. I will that the 
weight shall rise. I straighten out my arm. The mus- 
cles which have been trained and exercised, at once 



20 TRAINING. 

obey the will power, and the 2opound weight rises. 
My brain has acted as the stimulus. 

When we learn that in weight the muscles make up 
rather more than one-half of the human body, we can at 
once understand, apart from their power, how much 
they have to do with the nutrition of the body. Nature 
could never have distributed muscles so abundantly over 
the human frame, if they had not general work to do. 

Studying the subject more carefully as to muscular 
movement, we come to this remarkable conclusion : 
** That contractility is a force inherent in muscle, and 
is not supplied by its motor nerve.'' Bear in mind 
that will is the stimulus, and that though the muscles 
are there in a man's leg or arm, it is not the mus- 
cles which give out first, but the stimulus. I think 
anybody can understand this. The sprinter has run his 
course — and say he has won. The rapidity of his mo- 
tion has been so great that he is dead-gone for the frac- 
tion of a second after he has passed the tape. If the 
muscles of his legs or thighs could be weighed or meas- 
ured, then would they have shown a change ? Certainly 
not. But what prevented him going even a foot further 
in his course ? He had used up his stimulant. Because 
the work he had cut out was terribly severe, he called 
on his own stimulant, his will power, for its last possibil- 
ities. The stimulant did give all it could. It could do 
no more than that. 

It is not muscular force that is gained alone by exer- 
cise, but exercise increases not only the effects, but the 



TRAINING. 21 

duration of this stimulant. We can call upon this stim- 
ulant for a longer and more continuous service. 

How otherwise can I explain the fact that a man 
shows a tremendous increase of power far beyond his 
muscular development ? It can only be derived from 
certain improved qualities of stimulation, which the 
man called into existence, through judicious training. 
What we all agree in is, that this stimulant is an intan- 
gible thing, which cannot be weighed with a scale, nor 
measured with a tape-line. 

Muscular force in its unity is something often lost 
sight of. I move no portion of my body without call- 
ing into play an endless number of muscles. There is 
not a muscle on my left side that does not respond to 
the movement of my left leg. It is not alone the mus- 
cles on my left that are put into motion, but there is a 
yielding on the right side of my body to the active work 
of the muscles in my left. If there was not what is 
called antagonism, I should work stifHy, maybe not at 
all. I would always be getting out of plumb. 

If I had a mast properly rigged and held in posi- 
tion by two stays, securely anchored, and I wanted to 
pull the mast on one side in a line with the stays, I 
should have to overcome the resistance of the stay on 
the other side. What a wondrous movement it is then 
in our bodies, which almost automatically causes the 
other side, say it be on the right, to give way gradually 
to a left-handed movement. 

When a man puts the hammer, there is no single muscle 



22 TRAINING. 

of his body that he has not trained to work in unison. 
The toes of his foot he has put to the front ; on the heel 
of the one which he keeps in the rear, he balances himself ; 
the muscles of his waist, the thews of his neck, the 
very movement of his head, all give the additional foot 
or inch to the distance his hammer has been launched. 

It was not his arms alone that did the heaving. You 
never can then put your finger on one muscle and claim 
for that the entire effectiveness for doing work. In fact, 
the localization of any effective muscle is lost when geo- 
graphically considered. I know that I do think by 
means of my brain, and that in this bony box, my skull, 
my thoughts are engendered. I strike a blow v/ith my 
arm. I am wrong in my appreciation of muscular local- 
ization, were I to insist that my arm alone struck that 
blow. It was at the end of the arm with the clenched 
fist that the blow was delivered, but the power of that 
blow emanated from every muscle in my body. Those 
muscles did not, however, all work in the same exact 
direction. Some of them could not. What they did 
was their best, but of a different kind ; that is to say, 
some of them gave just as little hindrance as they 
could. 

This matter of a man's having two sets of muscles, 
working apparently differently, but all tending to the one 
end of perfecting the man, should be thoroughly under- 
stood. 

All important muscles seem to have their antago- 
nisms. We should be muscularly erratic if it were not 



TRAINING. 2^ 

for this. These antagonistic muscles are the wisest of 
natural brakes. There is an interplay of these two dif- 
ferent sets of muscles. We train without our appreciat- 
ing how much we are indebted to these two muscular 
systems. 

When we are perfect in physical exercise we actually 
do get, as it were, a new sense, which for want of a bet- 
ter term, we may call muscular sense or perception. 
If we did not educate that sense to its highest degree 
of excellence, we would waste power with every action 
we made. There is no neat athletic feat that does not 
owe its perfection to this unconscious muscular sense. 
It regulates the initial impulse. If either of these two 
sets of muscles are brought too much into prominence, 
there comes stiffness, and stiffness means want of co- 
ordinate power. 

Sometimes troubles arise from too much work im- 
posed in one direction and none at all in another. I 
have, say, exercised the particular set of muscles I 
designate as A, and I have produced a force which I call 
5. I have neglected the opposition muscles B, which 
remain at their normal 3. Their resistance takes then 
3 from the 5, and my result is but 2. I ought to have 
worked up the relaxation of these resisting muscles, so 
that they had given the least antagonism to the mus- 
cles A. I might never get the ideal 5, but probably a 
4}^ power. 

Tyros in gymnasiums always show in a distressing 
way the pull-back of their antagonistic muscles. This 



24 TRAINING. 

brings about awkwardness. The experienced teacher 
sees at once what there is at fault, and hence gives cer- 
tain pupils particular exercises. 

Take the danseuse. She is the embodiment of human 
grace, having under automatic control all her muscles. 
When she learned her calling she studied but one move- 
ment at a time, then two, then many. She acquired 
the art of making every new pose and each new step 
harmonize with those she had learned before. She has 
educated her two sets of muscles, otherwise she would 
be clumsy. 

The perfect mastery of all the muscles brings about 
the acme of grace, and grace is excellence. 

I never saw a great runner who did not carry himself 
with a certain amount of elegance. Even at the con- 
clusion of a terrible struggle, the last five yards, a great 
racer keeps to his form. Let him make the slightest 
blunder, — and to blunder is to be awkward, — and he is 
second or third best, and not the great first. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE INFLUENCE OF WORK. 

What are the muscles— Exercise brings about circulation— Close 
connection of all the functions— What is a congested con- 
dition—Muscular activity and temperature— -A muscle to 
work properly must be warmed — The muscles at rest — 
Work without apparent movement — How it tells on the 
muscles— Connection between brain and brawn— -Fatigue- 
Automatic exercises. 

No muscle is ever brought into action that it is not 
in a measure wasted. If this waste were not at once 
made up, powers would wane. How, then, can muscles 
be restored ? By means of the blood. The circulating 
fluid flows through all the veins, always pumped into them 
by that great engine, the heart, and the blood lands in 
each muscle exactly those elements it wants. Hence it 
follows that no motion can ever take place without 
increase of circulation. 

I may state that physiologists are undecided whether 
this increase of circulation is due entirely to the mechan- 
ical action of the muscles. It is much simpler to be- 
lieve, as I do, with others, that this increased circulation 
is, for the major part, mechanically induced. The 
harder I work, the quicker, the more intense is the 
action of the blood. No one function of the human 

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26 TRAINING. 

system can take on independent movement. All of 
them follow suit. If I am to carry on more steam I 
must put in more coal. Wanting to move faster, the 
stroke of my piston-rod is accelerated, and the fly-wheel 
makes more revolutions. The heart and lungs of a man 
in exercise are called to do more work, and that, too, in 
briefer intervals of time than when he is at rest. We 
must breathe more quickly. If we do not, we dull the 
fires, just as if we were to put a damper in the draught 
of a stove. 

I want to have this most important fact borne in 
mind, and it is the close relationship existing between 
all the functions of the human body. I cannot lift the 
slightest weight but that the stimulant of such exercise 
affects the brain. Where else than from the brain 
comes the will which makes me raise the weight? 
When, therefore, I exercise, I not only improve the 
subtlety of my muscle, but of my will, and it is on 
account of this that it may be safely said that exercise 
** favors the brain and the work of thinkers.*' Thence it 
happens that if physical work be carried to extremes, a 
time must come when the blood courses so quickly that 
something or other in the human system gets out of 
stroke, as it were, and then what is known as congestion 
takes place. 

We need not be the least alarmed at the word '' con- 
gestion.*' A feeble man rolls six of the ten-pin balls and 
is used up. The pugilist stands up for forty rounds and 
then gives in. It is not that the pugilist has been 



TRAINING. 27 

SO much battered, as that he has reached the limit of 
his powers. His period of congestion has been arrived 
at. It is not a dangerous crisis. We get over it. 

Many who Hve in the cities, and who are fat and lazy, 
get to the condition of congestion whenever they mount 
the steps of an elevated railroad in order to catch a 
train. Perfect training puts further and further back 
the time of congestion, or if congestion does come, 
serious effects are not to be dreaded. 

Too much stimulation brought about by excess of 
physical work is something to be guarded against. A 
man may wear himself out. This wearing out is not 
confined alone to his muscles ; it is all over. It is not 
only muscular development that halts, but the brain 
power is diminished. Cases of this kind are exceedingly 
rare, because nature has her own safeguards. Before 
the crisis is reached the check comes of its own accord. 

Muscular activity is increased when outside tempera- 
ture rises. Movements would be dull in a gymnasium 
kept at the freezing point. The question of the elas- 
ticity of an individual's muscles is not alone to be con- 
sidered, when he is exercising in a temperature of 32° 
F. He is not only not so springy, but he is actually 
weaker. It comes down to this. In order to get good 
work out of a muscle, and when you call on one you call 
on them all, that muscle, or all of them, must be warm. 
Do we not say, ^^ wait until you see that man warmed 
to his work *' ? Unconsciously, then, we warm to our 
work whenever we want to use any muscular effort. 



28 TRAINING. 

This IS exhibited in a hundred ways, not alone by our- 
selves, but in the lower animal creation. There is the 
pianist. If the concert-room be too cool, he will be sure 
to clasp his hands together, closely interlocking his fin- 
gers, so as to warm them. He tries to increase the cir- 
culation. The blood moving faster supplies warmth. 
A man may be in a passion. Say he is a cool man, 
apparently, and conceals his emotion. We are not to 
suppose that he is bereft of peculiar sensations. His 
heart moves faster. His circulation increases, and he is 
unconsciously warming himself up for his onslaught. 
If he is to strike a blow the muscular preparation has 
commenced. 

Take a dog just before he jumps at you. His hide 
becomes wrinkled. The mouth snarls, he shows his 
fangs. Nature is warming him up. The tiger, before 
he springs, lashes his tail. Take a horse and run him 
at once on the course, without a previous canter or 
warming-up, and the jockey will tell you you have made 
a mistake. All this is nothing more than the prepara- 
tion of the muscles. When you take rest and the body 
sleeps, the muscles rest and temperatures fall. 

Many a man in training knows how strange is the 
feeling when he rises in the morning half asleep. He 
experiences a certain numbness of muscle. I remember 
when closely associated with a rowing crew, to have 
watched the stroke oar get out of his bed after a sound 
night's sleep. It was a cool May morning. There was 
an expression of horror on the young man's face. 



TRAINING. 29 

"Anything wrong? ** I asked. 

" Wrong ! I should say so/' 

'* Stiff or sore?" 

" No ; but I felt I had muscles yesterday, and I know 
I am all bone to-day/' Then he clapped his hands to- 
gether and stamped his feet on the ground, and said 
with a smile, which ended in a hearty laugh, " Why, 
here they have come all back again ! I am all right. I 
was wild for a moment with some strange ideas ; I fan- 
cied my muscles had kept longer asleep than I did/' 
That really might have been the case. 

The limit of effectiveness of the muscles is found when 
the temperature of the blood approaches 45'' Centigrade, 
or 110° F. 

Here are my muscles, or systems of muscles, sound, in 
good condition, and improved through proper stimula- 
tions. They have withstood the heavy stress put on 
them. I am not satisfied. I want more work out of 
them. I call on them, in and out of season, and then 
comes what is known as a feeling of fatigue. My mus- 
cles are wonderfully made. No steel nor catgut can 
compare to them, but there is a measure of durability 
to everything, and I am wearing my muscles out. Keep 
on coiling and uncoiling a spring, and carry that out 
long enough, and the contractile power will wane until 
all the natural elasticity goes out of it. 

Just here comes in the consideration of that wonder- 
ful stimulant. The duller man is the one who, running 
in the foot-race, has used up his muscular power. He 



30 TRAINING. 

has been willing with an inferior will. He has drawn on 
all his stimulant, such as it was. Another man has 
started in the contest with, say, just the same normal 
amount of muscle and of an identical quality. He has 
been just as lavish in the employment of these muscles. 
The supreme moment arrives. He calls on himself for 
the extra stimulant, and it comes. His battery of re- 
serve works the stimulant into the muscles; they contract 
again and again, and he forges ahead and wins. That is 
what was meant in a previous chapter, when marvellous 
outbursts of power were mentioned. 

Because man has the most brain, this prevents him in- 
juring himself as would the lower creation through over- 
fatigue. Get to the limit of the use-up of the muscle, 
and the man stops. Will does accomplish wonders, but 
physical pain has, too, its own sway. There is no neces- 
sity of using violent exercise to convince us of the domi- 
nance of human sensibility. We can dispense with pump- 
ing a man on the track, or getting him congested, to 
show that. 

Hold out your right arm and keep it there, and see 
what happens. It would be the most reprehensible of all 
exercises if introduced into a competition. Soon the 
pain occasioned by such a position becomes evident. 
One good authority puts the time when a man can hold 
out his arm at being five minutes and twenty seconds. 
The limit, I think, is six minutes. I never saw it held 
more than five minutes and twenty-two seconds, though 



TRAINING. 31 

I have been told it has been done with a few more 
seconds added. The deltoid muscle declines the work. 
Yet there is no apparent real work. But there really is, 
and a vast amount of it. There was a constant, noise- 
less fight — none the less hard because not visible — be- 
tween the two antagonistic sets of muscles. The ex- 
perimentalist had stimulated himself, and kept on stimu- 
lating all he knew how, but it was of no use. 

Besides the real display of power in keeping up the 
muscular equilibrium of the arm, the one of motion was 
absent. The repairing fluid worked in a certain way, 
but its ** head '' or circulatory pressure was much dimin- 
ished. There was, too, actual compression of certain 
muscles. So we see that, after all, how to account for a 
very tired arm is somewhat complicated. Bear in mind 
here, that, distressing as is this work of holding out an 
arm, its effects are not alone physical, but mental. 
The consequences might not be alone evident in an ach- 
ing arm, but in a disturbed head. 

I want to call particular attention again to the close 
connection between brain and brawn. Professors of 
physical culture never overlook it, but pupils are inclined 
to pay too little heed to it. 

Without getting into any unfortunate condition of 
mental exaggeration, watch out all the time whether 
your brain works as well as do your muscles, for you 
might exhaust the first. Moderate exercise for begin- 
ners is, then, the golden rule. As you go on with your 



32 TRAINING. 

work, your mental power — the possibility of securing 
the stimulant — should increase. When you find it fail- 
ing, and you are listless, make up your mind that you 
have been overdoing it. Stop for a while, or work with 
the utmost moderation, until the proper balance is re- 
stored. You can see now, in many ways, that power 
really exists in your brain, and how it is almost always 
the directing agent. 

I remember to have seen a professional long-distance 
man who ought to have raced past an adversary. He 
lost the match. 

' What was the matter?'' I asked. 

" Matter? Matter enough. An hour before the race 
I had a letter telling me of the death of a man I loved 
— a man who had befriended me in a hundred ways. 
That took all the spring out of me. I sha'n't be good 
for anything for a month to come.'' 

I could hardly blame the man for his sensibility, 
though it had made him lose the race. 

Fatigue — ordinary fatigue — is a premonitory symptom 
showing that the body needs rest. It is like hunger, which 
is a natural call for food. But if I am fatigued, that does 
not mean a physical break-down, any more than hunger 
indicates that I am at starvation point. I think the de- 
scription of fatigue as a kind of '' regulator," as M. La- 
grange calls it, expresses the exact condition for the ex- 
istence of this feeling : *^ We tire most when we do 
things which our will controls, least when they are au- 



TRAINING. 33 

tomatic, or when work is carried on without any will of 
our own." If we had to think how we are pumping our 
own blood, or how we are breathing, we could barely 
stand the strain of that work for an hour. 

The less, then, we have to think how we do a thing, 
the more automatic we become — the less tired we feel. 



CHAPTER IV. 

LUNG-POWER. 

Pumped out — When it happens — Causes for it not well under- 
stood — The possible reasons — The congested condition — An 
excess of carbonic acid — All violent action has an effect on 
the lungs — Running — Sprinting — What sprinting calls for — 
Mental conditions affect staying powers — How a runner was 
beaten — The regulation of breathing — How lung-power may 
be increased. 

When I explained the looking over of a man in train- 
ing, I said that my first scrutiny was directed toward his 
chest. I wanted to judge his lung-power. I do not care 
how well developed may be his thighs, legs, or calves, 
without the bellows and room for them to move, physical 
excellence in all other parts of the body goes for noth- 
ing. To be " pumped out '' is the most common of all 
experiences, and it is not at any time a comfortable one. 
In large cities, where there are elevated roads and trains 
to be caught just on the minute, running up the steps 
*' winds '' a million or two of American citizens every 
day. Take the conclusion of many ordinary athletic 
exercises. A man runs, fails, and breaks all to pieces. 
No matter what may be his stimulating powers, he 
comes to a halt because he can breathe no longer. 
What happens to him very much resembles strangula- 
tion. 

(34) 



TRAINING. 35 

If you study this wind trouble, you will find that it is 
not so easy to understand. You may learn from your 
own experiences that certain kinds of exercises use up 
your wind powers while others do not. You blow or pant 
when you mount the rungs of the ladder, or swing on the 
rings. If you are on the parallel bars you can go 
through almost the whole of the exercises, may have 
your respiration quickened, but without any feeling of 
discomfort. When you stop; it is because you have 
used up muscular power alone. Your wind to all in- 
tents and purposes is intact. 

Certain movements you will discover, however, inter- 
fere seriously with respiration. If you are a sprinter 
and hurdler, at once you find out what it is to be both- 
ered with respiratory disturbances. Some experts have 
tried to show that " respiration '' or taking in air, and 
** expiration '* or driving it out, when regularly carried 
on, were the cause of trouble. This rhythm in breathing 
we do not think ever takes place save when a man 
sleeps. What we do know, however, is this, that when 
force is called upon, to be repeated at very short inter- 
vals of time, then breathlessness comes. 

Anatomical studies lead me to believe that in all 
the exercises " that wind a man,** we call into action for 
sudden movement the thoracic muscles, or those placed 
lower down (the abdominal ones). These we want pre- 
cisely to do our work of breathing. No muscle can do 
two things at once. There is probably mechanical in- 
terference. This trouble of the respiratory organs is 



36 TRAINING. 

not, however, so easily solved. There is more than 
mechanical action in it. Violent muscular action creates 
an additional quantity of carbonic gas in the system. 
We can stand just so much of that inside of us, and not 
a fraction more. When the quantity increases we must 
give in, or are poisoned or asphyxiated. 

Such natural manufacture of carbonic gas in the man 
has been measured. Sanson says that man during his 
sleep gives off 0.35 grammes of carbonic acid ; while at 
rest and awake almost double that, but when running 
1.65 grammes. This enormous increase is at once 
visible. Returning to those exercises, or peculiar move- 
ments which bring about respiratory trouble, it is not 
only perceptible in man but in animals. The kind of 
gait a horse takes has as much to do with his lasting 
qualities as with his speed. On the race-course, an 
expert will tell you : ' ** That it is not so hard for a horse 
to trot, for that is leg work, but to gallop, that is all 
lung work.'' You may completely wind a horse in a 
short gallop. If you had trotted him over the distance, 
no violent efforts on his part to breathe would have 
been perceptible. Gallop then slow, and you may trot 
him fast. 

It is running above all things else that winds the man. 
If you study the movement, examining the Muybridge 
instantaneous photographs, you will comprehend how 
much the man who runs is actually doing. There are 
certain intervals when the feet are clear from the ground, 
just as when a horse gallops. The runner is propelling 



TRAINING. 37 

himself clear of the earth, sailing into space, and it is 
here where the effort required is immense. Think in 
the mile run how often a man has to do that. The 
sprinter must take this upward and forward spring many- 
times in the second, and his body assuming exactly that 
position, when the muscles of propulsion are at cross 
purposes with those controlling the respiratory functions. 

A man to do this work once or twice or ten times, 
and suffer no inconvenience, is possible. But the doing 
of it some thousands of times consecutively, in the brief- 
est interval of time and not to break down, shows how 
marvellous is human endurance. He can accomplish 
this only when the proper condition has been brought 
about by careful training. 

I do not think that fatigue includes breathlessness, for 
breathlessness is something distinct and apart. There is 
a good authority who states, that the actual exercise of 
the lungs is far greater when a girl dances on a tight 
rope, than when a man pulls at an oar. This difficulty of 
the respiratory organs varies immensely with the in- 
dividual. I have known men with apparently a black- 
smith's bellows in their chest, get pumped out with cer- 
tain kinds of exercises at short notice, while others of 
much slighter build, with narrower chests, suffered but 
little. I have found that heavy men invariably suffer 
more than light weights, that is, when beginning their 
training. A course of careful exercise improved both 
sorts of men, but for high speed, I have thought the 
lighter man kept his wind a trifle longer. He had bet- 



38 TRAINING. 

tered himself, in this respect, some few points more than 
the heavier man. My remarks as to these two men, of 
course, only refer to their speed. Not being called upon 
for this power of respiration in other things, even in 
jumping, the bigger man was in more than one respect 
the smaller man's superior. 

To improve a man's wind really does not present such 
immense difificulties. The great secret of it is not to 
waste the strength of the pupil at the beginning. Every- 
thing depends on gradual work and instruction given the 
muscles. It is to be slow to-day that good work is pos- 
sible to-morrow. Give the man the same thing to do 
over and over again, such work being chosen which 
brings more particularly into play the abdominal muscles. 
Then something like an automatic action takes place. 
Struggles for breath pass away, or are of minor im- 
portance. 

The worst thing I know of is to start a man with poor 
respiratory power and to try to mend it at once on the 
track. What ought to be done is to keep him on his 
legs and work the legs, but not by speeding the man. 
Give him work in plenty, but not violent work. When 
on the track, walk him indifferent as to his style. 
If you do at last consent to run him, insist at first in 
short distances and let him work over them slowly. In 
time the short breath will be a longer one, and speed 
will come without strangulation. I find fault with any 
such teachings, which insist that a man can be so trained 
as to come in winner at the foot race, breathing as 



TRAINING. 39 

regularly as a child in the cradle. Any one who enter- 
tains such an idea can never have seen a race. Running 
kept up with the element of speed is the hardest work a 
man can undertake. The blood tears through the veins. 
The heart increases its action. Carbonic acid produced 
by such rapid breathing accumulates in the system. 
There is the probability that rapid muscular action 
manufactures and injects carbonic acid into the blood. 
The best man wins, but he is and must be breathless. 

The endurance and wind of the race-horse is superb. 
When he comes in after the race, I want to loosen his 
girths at once, so as to leave his panting flanks un- 
hampered. I am desirous that he should assume normal 
conditions. 

You can wind yourself, and really take no great 
amount of exercise. Mental disturbance brings about 
panting. Run a man and add to that distress of mind, 
and you augment his respiratory troubles. Raise a hare 
and chase him with dogs. Actually, the hare is faster 
than the greyhound, but the hare loses ground through 
timidity. He pants through fright at the first 50 yards. 
He might escape did he husband his resources. He 
breathes hard because of his emotional distress. His 
wind goes, and he is overtaken by the dogs. 

Great runners have told me that they had acquired 
the habit of regulating their lung action, and that they 
strove to keep it in regular action, never hurrying the 
respiratory process. It is the will-power which comes in 
here. 



40 TRAINING. 

A phenomenal runner said to me : " Oh, my legs ? 
Why, they run of themselves. They can't be taught 
anything more, but it is my wind that I keep educat- 
ing." 

The man thoroughly versed in physical exercise comes 
in the winner, because he has learned how to economize 
his powers. He does not believe that he has the limit- 
less endurance of a steam engine. Say he is line for the 
race, and knows that at the start, the runners B or C 
may outfoot him for the first half. He waits until they 
have done what is called ** beaten themselves/* by forcing 
the work. Then he has his reserve of wind power. He 
has kept it in abeyance, and on the last quarter he does 
his best, and because he has had good judgment and 
good training, he comes in ahead. 

When I call attention to the *' thoracic action,*' I 
know it is a term describing a great deal. It means that 
part of the human body between the neck and the 
abdomen. We breathe through the automatic contrac- 
tion and expansion of the muscular system. What part 
the abdominal muscles have to do with breathing, we do 
not know so much about. It is probable, however, that 
they give a certain movement to respiration. In cases 
of violent physical work, such as of running, they cer- 
tainly give their aid. These muscles act as auxiliaries. 
To give these additional force, so that when called upon, 
they will help respiration, I deem certain simple ex- 
ercises of the abdominal muscles of imperative necessity 
for the runner. 



TRAINING. 41 

I always question the staying powers of a man who, 
when stripped, is too much " tuckered up '* below his 
waist. 

The winded man, if in good condition, suffers but lit- 
tle after the crisis has been reached. What would kill 
the novice, is really of little consequence to the expert. 
Recuperative powers come into action. At once he 
frees himself rapidly of that excess of carbonic acid 
which would imperil the condition of another man. 

A good many reasons are given why a clean-skinned 
man is alone in prime condition. Because his pores are 
open I know that he must get rid of his poison more 
rapidly than an unclean man. Well acquainted with 
running men, I may state for the comfort of beginners, 
that I have seen the most famous of them come home 
winners in an apparently very woe-begone condition. 

The consulting physician of a well-known athletic^ 
club gave me this as his personal account of the condi- 
tion of a winner, whose pluck made him the first in a 
hard-run contest : 

" I thought Mr. H quite gone. It was a condition 

of absolute collapse. I am used to such things, but I 
was worried to death. It would not only be the loss of 
a splendid fellow, but would bring discredit on athletics. 
Every newspaper would have made a row about it. 
Just as I was in an absolute * funk,' my brave lad 
said, languidly enough : * It must have been two feet. 
I thought I should beat him that much.' I put some 
weak brandy and water to his lips, and as he sipped 



42 TRAINING. 

it, said : * Don't bother about me. In ten minutes I 
will be walking about, and good to run in a quarter 
hour, and next month I will have another try/ It 
might have been just as he said. In twenty minutes 
he might, it is true, have been ready to go out ; but I 
wouldn't let him. I had him to lay down. No, I 
didn't have him rubbed down. He went soon sound 
asleep. When he awoke, four hours afterward, he seemed 
fairly fresh." 

" But," I asked, '' might not the time come when such 
a man would be likely to kill himself ? " 

" Certainly, ' was the reply. " And so I have just for- 
bidden him from trying to do anything more this year. 
A valuable life is worth more than a record of a one- 
quarter of a second better than anybody else. You 
Americans, with your high-strung natures, are going it, 
I think, too strong. You do things uncommon well. I 
think the air gives you a certain amount of nervous 
energy, but do try and remember that wind, and the 
overtaxing of it, is full of danger. I sometimes have 
an idea that wind and muscle are two things quite apart. 
Heavy, sluggish men do not go off with heart disease 
from over-exercise. I do not suppose that whales die 
of heart trouble, but the dolphins do." 

I may add that my judgment about such matters 
coincides with that of my English friend. 



CHAPTER V. 

EXCESS OF WORK. 

General and natural fatigue —We can break down, and our lung- 
power is not at fault — The exercise of a single set of muscles — 
Case of the United States Register — Special dangers of over- 
work — Liability to disease — Heart troubles — Always keep on 
the safe side — Pushing lads to efforts beyond their years. 

Much as temperate and well-considered work at the 
gymnasium or in the open improves bodily condition, 
so excess of it, inattentively carried out, causes physical 
degeneration. 

I have made a point of examining what were the con- 
sequences likely to ensue from want of attention to the 
exercise of the chest and abdomen, and above all, call- 
ing on the human economy for more than it could give. 
In writing particularly about the respiratory process, 
and the inconveniences felt in certain exercises, I have 
tried to draw a distinction between specific troubles, 
and general and natural fatigue. 

I can take one kind of exercise and work at it until 
my arms refuse to make another effort, and yet my lung 
power will be diminished little, if anything. I am using 
up some particular system of muscles for the time being. 
It is the simplest example of overwork, but the effects, 
as can be clearly shown, are complex. To explain this 

(43) 



44 TRAINING. 

" overwork *' of a very ordinary set of muscles, the best 
example of such a case that I know is Mr. L. E. Chitten- 
den's account of his signing U. S. Treasury bonds when 
pressed for time. I make the following summary of 
his article, abridging it from the one under Mr. Chitten- 
den's signature, to be found in Harper s Magazine of 
May, 1890: 

Mr. Chittenden began to sign bonds at midday on a 
Friday, and continued signing up to the following Sun- 
day, when his work was completed. The period was 
then forty-eight hours. Every possible assistance was 
given him. The bonds were brought to him and carried 
away. All he had to do was to sign. There were rea- 
sons of state why Mr. Chittenden should sign the bonds, 
and no one else, and the bonds had to be ready for 
transmission to England at a certain hour. 

One might suppose that the tracing of the letters of 
a man's name by the owner of that signature would be 
the most automatic of actions. Nothing, in fact, is 
more thoroughly developed by use than the fingers. 
The act of thinking in writing a word, by an educated 
man, is hardly appreciable. In this case, here was a 
high officer of state who had naturally acquired both 
precision and rapidity in writing his signature. He was 
used to making it. 

What happened to the United States Register? 
On the Sunday he writes, '* My fingers and hand were 
drawn out of their natural shape." Long-continued ex- 
ertion had to some extent influenced the mind of the 



TRAINING. 45 

Register. His memory of what happened for the great- 
er part of Sunday morning was a blank. The whole 
process of the over-exerting of a single set of muscles 
he carefully describes. It was at the eighth hour from 
the start " that muscular discontent*' was apparent. In 
a short time every muscle in the arm showed inflamma- 
tion, the pain in the hand becoming intense. The best 
surgical aid was called in, and the arm was bathed and 
rubbed, but there came no alleviation. Then set in 
symptoms which were alarming. There was numbness, 
and Mr. Chittenden writes, ** It was as if my arm and 
hand were dead.'' Still the fingers went on with their 
work. It might have been expected that the signatures 
would have become more and more illegible, or at 
variance with its original form, but this did not happen 
to any great extent. ^' The constant repetition of the 
same movements seemed to result in their continuance, 
independently of the will. The signature was still a 
fair one." 

General physical weakness was fast setting in, and un- 
doubtedly there was mental disturbance. It took more 
time near the end to sign loo bonds than i,ooo at the 
beginning. The task was concluded. Mr. Chittenden's 
terrible physical ordeal was apparently over, and with 
what result ? He writ-es : " The abuse of muscular en- 
ergy eventually caused my resignation from the Treasury, 
and cost me several years of physical pain." Farther 
on he adds : '* Many years elapsed before the Register 
atoned for this violation of the laws, which never fail to 



46 TRAINING. 

punish those who break them. While he remained in 
office there was no day in which he was not reminded, 
by a sharp rheumatic twinge of the wrists, of that Sun- 
day morning. After he had left the Treasury, there 
were five long years in which he could never promise 
that he could perform any professional labor at any 
fixed date in the future." 

Mr. Chittenden's case shows the remarkable effects of 
fatigue of muscle, with the wane of the mental stimu- 
lant. After a while, " the will '' was dulled, though it 
was the will of the Register that kept him up all the 
time. The mental stimulant had been called upon, and 
called upon beyond its possibilities. After a while it de- 
clined answering, and yet there was something of it left, 
since the fingers traced the letters. No book can pre- 
sent a theory so clearly as an actual case of this kind. 
If not for the positive authenticity of the article, it 
might be questioned. 

The Register's disturbance continued after the task 
was ended, and it was only on Monday night that sleep 
came, and it was sleep brought about by sheer exhaus- 
tion. It may be advanced that Mr. Chittenden's phys- 
ical condition at the start was not good, and this may 
be granted. Not being " good," might mean that his 
status was not equal to that of a fairly-well trained 
man. If the Register had had the physical condition of 
an athlete, he could have gone on signing with much 
less inconvenience. He would have kept to his task 
longer, but exactly how much longer nobody can say. 



TRAINING. 47 

This, however, is positive : if Mr. Chittenden had been a 
better built-up man, and accustomed to muscular wear 
and tear, the after-effects would have been insignificant. 
I question, however, whether special endurance of any 
particular circumscribed set of muscles has ever been so 
thoroughly tested as in this casq. 

There are certain simple mechanical devices in gym- 
nasiums which might solve localized endurance. I do 
not want them, however, tried. The play would not be 
worth the candle. What I do believe, however, is this : 
that the limit of endurance, for certain movements, 
would be sooner reached than is supposed. All I want 
to show here is, the connection which exists between 
the muscles and the brain, and that they are interdepend- 
ent. Their action is correlated — reciprocal. One works 
on the other. Over-fatigue your brain, and your body 
suffers. Overwork your body, and the brain feels the 
depressing work. 

Although the athlete is good for nothing unless he 
breathes well, there have been well-attested instances of 
men performing acts of strength who were absolutely 
consumptive. These men did not get better of their 
major complaint by exercise, but eventually died of it. 

The dangers of overwork are not, then, to be slighted. 
The w^hole system can be over-strained, and then gen- 
eral health is weakened. This volume is written, not to 
quench that proper ardor for physical culture in which 
lies our greatest hope for the future, but to guard against 
abuses arising from overwork. To get the system down 



48 TRAINING. 

to its lowest level, to keep taking away from its vitality, 
without giving it a chance to repair itself, is not uncom- 
mon. It is, as if a man was stripping himself of his 
shield of ordinary health, so that the shaft of disease 
directed toward him should meet with the least power 
of resistance. He who is thus worked down invites ill- 
ness. The minor diseases which accompany youth may 
not be evaded, but such as are unusual, as typhoid 
fever ought to be rarer. There is no better nidus, or 
nest, for typhoid fever to hatch in, than the body of a 
young man from eighteen to twenty who has overworked 
himself. 

I do not argue this question, because it is self-evident 
that a young man who is in the act of making or train- 
ing himself up is more liable to disease than the normal 
hardened adult. 

An overworked man is hurting himself, not in a spe- 
cial, but in a general way, not an inch or two or more 
deep, where his muscles play, but internally. I believe 
that with the peculiarities of our American climate, our 
chances of becoming overworked are more frequent 
than in England. Essentially nervous, we have a tend- 
ency toward excitability of the brain, and our men, 
from overwork, lose will power. To be "stale" means 
more than muscle deterioration. It positively includes 
lessened will to work. The stimulus has departed. 

I need not point out how " overworking and under- 
feeding ** bring about rapid fatigue. A man who exer- 
cises daily at the gymnasium, and finds no natural in- 



TRAINING. 49 

crease of appetite, need not stop all work, but he ought 
to lessen his hours of work. Too sudden losses of weight, 
when temperatures show no difference, are signs of over- 
work. Human resistance should be gradual. A man 
ought to get rid of the over-quantity of fat in his system, 
but precipitancy in such things is to act at variance with 
the laws of stability. 

I return to that heart action which becomes endan- 
gered from overwork. Nervous trouble is bad enough. 
You may stand mental sufferings ; you can live more 
or less miserably with them, but when the action of the 
heart is disorganized, your race is run. Why this hap- 
pens is easy to explain. When I exercise, I call on my 
heart for increase of activity. I want new blood all the 
time for purposes of repair. I force the circulation, 
mechanically, if you please. I use my heart too much, 
w^hich really is nothing more than a big muscle. I neces- 
sarily expand and contract it to a greater degree than is 
normal. It is only a muscle, and if it obeys the same 
rules as do the muscles of my leg or arm, it must be 
subjected to the same troubles. I can, by squeezing my 
heart, flatten it out or thin its valves, and then away it 
goes, because its natural fibrous structure has been 
weakened. Sometimes the heart refuses to do over- 
work. It thickens and thickens, becoming denser, and 
so loses its healthful play, and then comes the end. 

I am told that Indian runners in South America gen- 
erally leave off their calling at thirty-five because of 
heart troubles, and an Indian runner's gait is not so fast 



50 TRAINING. 

as it is constant. We all know what are the conditions 
which most readily induce physical exhaustion. It is 
labor carried out without enough food, or well-prepared 
food, and without sufficient sleep. You need not look 
for cases of such exhaustion in the gymnasium alone. 
You may find it among farm laborers, where a great deal 
of work is expected by employers who stint their hands 
in their food. Many a servant girl feels it, and breaks 
down in a fashionable household. She scrubs, irons, 
washes, cooks, and has not enough to eat. It becomes 
perfectly plain that we break down, not from one, but 
from many causes. Stripping this overworked condition 
of the many scientific terms in use to describe it, I may 
say that it often arises from the absolute tearing of mus- 
cular fibre, and may be local, or it comes about from the 
over-creation of waste products in the system which 
choke us. They may be solid, or even gaseous ; and 
lastly, we get to that cause most subtle and most difficult 
to specialize, which is the lessening, or the extinction, of 
the will power. 

I again call attention to the purpose of this book. 
Everybody is not born strong and lusty. Conditions of 
men are as different as are their environments. Young 
men are ambitious, and their present sound health may 
induce them to believe that no amount of self-imposed 
work can hurt them. I want to show that such a belief 
is dangerous. I am inclined to the opinion that over- 
exertion hurts many. Serious cases of prostration I 
know of. I have seen them, and I say regretfully that 



TRAINING. 51 

the subjects thus affected were rarely brought back to 
that same degree of physical excellence they once en- 
joyed. I have a mortal dislike to see very young lads 
put in training, and *^ training'' is different from *^ exer- 
cising.'' I know that generally nothing unfortunate 
comes of it, but only *^ sometimes," and even that 
*' sometimes " ought never to occur. 

What is prettier to see than a fourteen-year lad going 
free over the track with a natural gait. I know it does 
not hurt him, but I want him not to go quite so fast. I 
feel all the time like stopping him. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE BODY AS A MACHINE. 

The body like a machine, but only up to a certain point — Exer- 
cise changes its condition — After work, repose — Methods of 
human repair — How relief comes — Rest — How different ex- 
ercises tire — Endurance — Troubles arising from over cere- 
bral stimulation. 

We are prone to compare the human body to a ma- 
chine. The simile holds good, but only up to a certain 
point. Our food is our fuel ; the mental power, the 
stimulant, or the steam, is created, and the arms, the 
pistons or the legs or the wheels, move. But here the 
likeness stops short. Every time I fire up my boiler I 
use up my grate-bars, I wear out my boiler, I grind out 
by friction the piston or the bearings. I may fire away 
all I please. In a certain definite time my engine must 
stop for repairs. To set the machine of iron, steel, or 
brass working anew, man must come in and put in 
repairs. 

We work the human body, we wear it away, but the 
repair comes miraculously from ourselves. It is impos- 
sible to imagine that we can use up muscle and repair 
muscle at one and the same instant. We must have 
repose or rest for our body in order to give it the chance 

of going into repair. We are burning up something 
(52) 



TRAINING. 53 

within us, for how could our temperatures rise in exer- 
cise if there was not combustion ? When you burn up 
anything, have you not two products left — the gaseous 
and solid ones ? 

I work hard at the parallel bars or I run my mile. I 
make more carbonic acid than when I was at rest, and 
I even produce novel changes in the substances out of 
which my muscles are made. I must get ri3 of these 
new substances, or I would soon be in the condition 
of the fire-grate where the bars are clogged with clink- 
ers. My draft must be free and clear or my fire will 
smoulder. 

Repose then is a necessity. It is nature asserting 
itself. We sleep in order to restore our bodies to their 
normal conditions. We make up then for the waste of 
tissue. We strike work for repairs, or we get our burnt 
products or ashes in such a condition as to most easily 
discharge them. 

There are certain conditions, particularly accentuated 
in the muscles, which insist on rest. By overwork we 
render them locally over-excitable. We can produce vio- 
lent spasmodic effects. We have "cramps*' because of 
the over-friction of one muscle on another. Cramps are 
felt by old people who do not exercise, and as far as the 
causes can be determined, they arise because muscles 
have become clogged, do not work easily one over the 
other, our condition with advanced years not being nor- 
mal or natural. 

Brief intervals of rest, even of a few seconds, caught 



54 TRAINING. 

as it were when work is going on, bring immense relief. 
The accomplished performer is skillful because he knows 
exactly how, and when, to take a brief rest. I know of 
no better comparison than that of the vocalist, who 
sings so well and yet takes breath. The opera tenor 
inflates his lungs so quietly that when he does, it es- 
capes you. How exactly then to take rest while at 
work is a talent. 

In running, relief may sometimes be had by a change 
of position, or the stride, but a man must know exactly 
how to do it. It seems really marvellous how a well- 
trained man will apparently gain perfect equilibrium, 
after violent exertion, by taking an instant of rest. An 
untrained man would require an hour or two to get him 
back to a normal condition, while one or two minutes 
suffices the athlete. 

An excellent authority on such matters, in describing 
the " time '' allowed between the rounds according to 
the rules of the ring, believes that the fact of the thirty 
or forty seconds permissible is entirely too long. Ex- 
pressing himself as decidedly on the side of humanity, 
he thinks that a prize-fight would subject the combatants 
to less bodily harm if they were allowed no intervals of 
rest. His argument is that, with their perfect training, 
the pugilist gets himself entirely back in the quarter of 
a minute, and then his arm, or his fist, or his entire mus- 
cular system, is as good as ever. Hence the blows ad- 
ministered at the last round are just as telling as the 
first. If the battle were fought right out without a sec- 



TRAINING. ■ 55 

ond's rest — a brush from beginning to finish — then, he 
insists, that (with certain rules) the injuries inflicted 
would be diminished. It is a French authority who 
writes this. He may be sound theoretically, but evi- 
dently knows little about boxing rules, nor of the many 
resources, other than physical ones, pugilists possess. 

If we consider what are the advantages of rest to ani- 
mals, we need only look at the horse when he is put on 
the course. In his mile burst — the best in three — with 
brief intervals of rest between the races, the racer is 
quite likely to make his last mile the fastest of the three. 
Endurance in exercises of certain kinds is marvellous. 
It would seem at first that the repose necessary after 
prolonged exercise might be made briefer than for short 
and violent work. Speaking not so much of my own 
personal experience, but of that derived from certain 
distinguished performers that have told me that ^* dead 
beat,*' as they might have been after a half-mile run, they 
got sooner over it, wanting less absolute rest than after 
a ten-mile walk. The feeling of fatigue, so they ex- 
pressed themselves, with continued work was "all over.'* 
The tire had come during the long walk, little by little 
(not all at once, as in the mile or half-mile race), and 
it was only little by little that the effects of the long 
walk were removed by rest. 

Generally, " the profession *' is much more amenable 
to trainers' orders than is supposed by the public. 
Backers, who had most to do with the selection of a 
trainer, make it imperative that principals must obey 



56 TRAINING. 

orders, or the purse-strings are drawn tight. I have, 
however, seen headstrong men, with fine legs and poor 
brains, who, by not giving themselves rest enough after 
a telling effort, having tried to repeat their perform- 
ances, have failed, and never afterward reached the time 
of their best work. I can account for these mishaps in 
no other way than by their having ignored that rest be- 
tween acts, which is imperative. 

In such cases as have come before my notice of actual 
troubles arising from overwork in exercising, they were 
so visible as to require no diagnosis. But there are 
some complaints of a nervous character which are, how- 
ever, very difficult to localize. The over-stimulation of 
the abdominal muscles does, sometimes, bring about pe- 
culiar troubles. Certain ganglia seem then to exercise 
abnormal power, and there are well-defined intestinal 
disturbances. Something like acute dyspepsia sets in, 
and the digestive powers are seriously impaired. I am 
forced to make the statement that conditions of this 
kind are prevalent, and, what is worse, that they are ex- 
ceedingly difficult to cure. 



CHAPTER VIL 

FATIGUE. 

Fatigue and hunger considered — Endurance with the trained and 
untrained — Adaptiveness — Improvement of bone and muscle 
— The race-horse — Local disturbances overcome — The help 
nature gives. 

I HAVE said that the feeling of fatigue bears a marked 
resemblance to that of hunger. The system wants, in 
the first case, rest ; in the second, food. I may not take 
rest or food from accidental causes, or these privations 
may be self-imposed, and I suffer the penalty. If I am 
inured to both fatigue and hunger, I can withstand 
their effects longer, and the reasons are self-evident. I 
have put my body under such excellent conditions that 
I bend and do not break. The man, then, is soonest 
used up, when strain is put on him, who has exercised 
the least. The lassitude of those who never walk need 
not be commented upon. If they do walk, then stiff- 
ness and other discomforts set in. Mechanical action is 
hampered by what may be, not so much atrophy of the 
muscles, as entire absence of mental stimulant. Nei- 
ther having been worked, both fail. By mental stimu- 
lant, I mean, of course, the peculiar willing power which 
controls muscular movement. 

(57) 



58 TRAINING. 

It is well to define what is this special stimulant. It 
is possible for a man to remain as motionless in his chair 
as if made of marble, and still have marvellous brain- 
power and exercise it. All is dead in him but the ca- 
pacity to think. 

Endurance to fatigue depends on physical conditions 
and much on habit. I can take a runner and have him 
try and do mason*s work for half a day, and I will tire 
him out. I can try my mason over a two-mile track, and 
use him up in a quarter of an hour for the rest of his 
day. This difference may depend very much on the in- 
dividual. I have two men well trained, and one will 
outwork the other, and the man accomplishing the 
heavier task will be the least tired. Careful training 
does much, but the personal factor always will exert it- 
self. There is this, however, about it, that, when fatigue 
and actual discomfort arise, the trained man supports it 
the more readily of the two. He does not dread the 
after-effects of fatigue, even if his task is carried beyond 
reason. When I say ^' he is a tough man,'' I mean pretty 
much what the adjective expresses. He has hardened 
his muscles through exercise. These have been greatly 
developed, and because they exist in quantity, they can 
be drawn upon as a capital, and, after a certain expendi- 
ture, there is still a balance left. When a man is " ten- 
der,'' the actual opposite exists. 

I play gardener with my rake and hoe, and in an hour 
I blister my hands. My neighbor, the market-gardener, 
digs potatoes all day, and his hands, which had a horn- 



TRAINING. 59 

like cuticle, show no abrasion when his work is over. 
That gardener may laugh at me when I show him my 
blistered fingers. Say there is a hue and cry suddenly 
raised, and we both mount our horses in pursuit of a 
murderer. Though my hands are so soft, it may not be 
the same case with my legs. The gardener's general 
condition may be better than mine, save in one respect 
— his legs. I have exercised the muscles of my thighs, 
legs, and calves, and have accustomed them to the move- 
ments of my horse. I can ride three or four hours with 
little fatigue and no abrasion of the cuticle, whereas, my 
hard-handed gardener gets off his horse half flayed. I 
need not, however, pride myself on my special perform- 
ances, because, save in exceptional work, the gardener 
is likely to be, physically, a stronger animal than I. Ex- 
ercise, food, and rest being in favorable adjustment to 
muscular work, these not only increase thews and sin- 
ews, but absolutely improve the bony structure. Bones 
increase in solidity when the muscles attached to them 
do additional work. If the human structure did not im- 
prove, how could it withstand the increased jerking and 
pulling? Without a firm foundation no lifting power 
would be possible. Take a limber or weak crane, and what 
confidence could you place in it? Here is the positive 
proof of what is stated : If the skeleton of a race-horse 
is examined, though the bones may be smaller, their 
structure is denser. They weigh more in proportion than 
those of the ordinary horse. In the human skeleton this 
difference of denser bone in the athlete is marked. 



6o TRAINING. 

If we go back and ask why a man who is thorough in 
his physical development resists fatigue better than a 
man who has never put himself to work, at once then we 
see the reason for it. I have a rough mountain road to 
travel, and I want a stick to help me climb the steeps. 
Shall I take a soft, or a brittle, or a hard, tough, and 
elastic staff ? Say I get to my mountain height. I have 
not broken my staff, but it is bent, and the spring has 
all gone out of it. I know it is good for nothing. I can 
trust it no longer. I have used it up. 

I wish I might make perfectly clear what is meant by 
" adaptiveness," because adaptiveness is the most won- 
derful of all physical possibilities. Suppose I take 
an extreme case. A man has weak lungs, followed by 
hemorrhages. The chances arc many that he will die. 
Nature, however, exerts not so much her power of re- 
sistance to keep the man alive, but rather tries her 
plastic processes. Nature adapts the man's lungs to 
new conditions. The man must breathe with a lessened 
lung surface. If the change were instantaneous from a 
normal or ordinary to an abnormal and extraordinary 
condition, the chances of local disturbances would be so 
violent that it would end in the death of the man. The 
adapting process is slow then. Resistances are gradually 
overcome. The machine is not as perfect as it was, but 
Nature satisfies herself with a second-class mechanism. 
It may clatter, but it does its* work. Nature then of 
her own accord steps in, under unfavorable conditions, 
and repairs as well as she can a damaged mechanism. 



TRAINING. 6 1 

Take conditions which are the most favorable — a 
sound body, a quickened intelligence, and exercise, noth- 
ing being done in excess — and then we can understand 
how marvellous are those new conditions. 

It is the healthy tone of every portion of the human 
system, acquired in younger days, that continues with 
age. The joints in the man of sixty, who supplied them 
with force when he was twenty, do not creak nor grate 
when he is a grandfather. Nature gives us help when 
we try to help her. Diameters of chests increase and 
additional inches of muscle come. Careful physical work 
does something more. It exercises a power of selection 
within the substances found in the man. Muscles will 
not contract well if too much imbedded in fatty tissue. 
Work then dispenses with superfluous fat as nutrition 
becomes automatically perfect. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

IMPROVING CONDITIONS. 

The bettering of all the functions — To strength, skill is added — 
Muscular education — The many ways of doing the one thing 
— The greatest economy of force — Courage — Self-reliance — 
How exercise induces them. 

So far I have presented what are the dangers arising 
from overwork, and I shall have failed in my object if I 
have not succeeded in impressing the gravity of this on 
readers. 

We will now take the optimistic side, the one so often 
arrived at, and it is the man improved. He has in- 
creased in strength and in health. Not one of his 
organs, but all of them have been bettered. Not alone 
all the tools he works with are of finer quality, but with 
them he accomplishes more, because he knows better 
how to wield them. The element of skill, then, has been 
added. 

The work itself is accomplished with less fatigue, 
therefore the man's lasting powers have increased. Some 
of his movements have become nearly automatic, so well 
trained are certain muscles. He need not call all the 
time on his mental stimulant, or, if he does, it is with 
a lessened cerebral impulse. It then stands to reason 

(62) 



TRAINING. 63 

that, with an unimpaired stock of stimulant, when the 
great effort is called forth, the mental source of power 
responds. 

I have described the work of the antagonistic muscles. 
When the man is trained, there is no struggle within 
himself for mastery. The nicest adjustments have taken 
place, and the awkwardness is gone. If I were to take 
a trained and an untrained man, both equally strong, and 
have them accomplish a certain piece of work neither 
had tried before, I might be quite positive that the 
trained man would perform his task more easily, more 
quickly, and better than the untrained man. 

This educating of muscular action has its peculiarities. 
Lagrange writes to the effect that the expert athlete 
may have several ways of doing the same thing. Such 
little differences are not visible to the looker-on. The 
man who has been trained has gone through an appren- 
ticeship, and knows how to manage himself. He may 
at once reject certain ways of doing some feat of agility, 
or combine several, and then arrive at perfect accom- 
plishment. Wha^ he has done to achieve distinction 
has been brought about by a careful selection of mus- 
cular movement. This is not seen in the least by his 
attitude, pose, or effort in the movement. The exact 
combination of muscles escapes detection. He may 
hardly know himself how he does it. He has arrived at 
what is known as the greatest economy of force. Dy- 
namometers or mechanical apparatus, used to measure 
power, fail to show where is the excellence of the 



64 TRAINING. 

individual for certain work. We call it knack — sleight- 
of-hand. 

There is one point in fine physical training which is 
often overlooked, and that is the positive development 
of courage in the individual. If there was nothing else 
than this one effect gained, as the outcome of perfecting 
the man, it would be all-sufficient. The reason why 
personal courage increases is manifest. The character 
of the will has been improved. It becomes more tena- 
cious. It has tested its powers of resistance. It may 
differ as to nicety of distinction from what is known as 
moral courage ; nevertheless, since man was born, it is 
physical courage which has made him master over the 
brute creation. It is difficult to class physical courage 
as something apart from known muscular powers. Cour- 
age can exist, however, in the weakling, in the man of 
slender proportions and soft muscles, but it is rather the 
mind that stiffens such. Mental courage is that superb 
brain-force which makes a brave man of him who is 
naturally timid, as the officer who nerves himself in 
battle, and stands apparently calm when the ranks are 
being torn by an enemy^s shot and shell. The heavy 
punishment a man receives in a prize fight, the feel- 
ing of exhaustion which dazes the sprinter, the faint 
of the plucky stroke-oar, all of which have to be re- 
sisted, are examples of that physical courage the well- 
trained man has created. With the adult, or the young 
man under normal conditions, physical courage is nat- 
urally developed. The germ of it becomes implanted 



TRAINING. 65 

earlier when lads take to exercise, and it has greater 
fruitage. 

Exercise brings self-reliance. Knowing that my mech- 
anism is good, appreciating its power of resistance when 
I take personal risks, I do not lose my head. What 
matters it if by a misstep I fall into the water, or my 
canoe is upset ? It is only the minor question of wet 
clothes. I know that I can take the most perfect care 
of myself. Assured of that, suppose some one else falls 
in the river, and I know that he or she is helpless. If I 
can look out for myself, why not look out for the man 
or the woman who flounders in the water? Because I 
have energy and will, strongly developed by exercise, 
I am neither fussy nor flurried. I know exactly what 
must be done, and I do it ; and when a life is saved by 
my means, I wonder why such a noise is made about 
what seemed so little for me to do. 

Take another condition — the quickness of thought, 
the alertness of conception — which has all to do with 
self-preservation. Because I am a fair trapeze per- 
former, or accustomed to ladder-work, the space lying 
under me, through which I might fall if I made a slip, 
has no apparent danger for me. I may have fallen once 
and been contused. But by practice I know how to 
fall — for how to tumble is an art, one carefully studied 
by fire-saving corps in the large cities. I am on a plat- 
form with a crowd. The timbers break and down I go. 
Instantly I appreciate the situation. As I fall I know 
what I am about, and arrange my body, prepared for all 



66 TRAINING. 

contingencies. Guides in Switzerland, accustomed to 
falling and sliding, bring into play firstly their physical 
courage, and secondly their well-trained bodies. What 
higher incentives can there be for perfection of physical 
culture than the possibilities of passing through certain 
ordeals unscathed ? Self-preservation is held to be the 
first of human rights. Perhaps before it comes the 
noblest of all instincts — that of saving a fellow-creature 
from death. 



CHAPTER IX. 

EFFECTS OF CARELESS EXERCISE — DEFORMITIES. 

Differences in the length of limbs — The left leg generally the 
stronger — Right-handed men increase the power of the left 
leg — The foot — The balance struck — A lop-sided athlete — 
Exaggerations of form — Cultivation of deformity — The trapeze 
performer — The cyclist — Getting a set form — Overwork in 
one direction — The fencer — The rider — The care to be taken 
of the vertebral column— Use of head-weights— Baseball 
pitchers — The Esquimaux in his carak. 

In Xhe Journal of Anatomy and Physiology^ Dr. Garson 
makes this statement, that by the actual measure of 
the skeletons of seventy persons, " ten per cent, showed 
right and left limbs of equal length, and of these only- 
two cases in which the femur and tibia of one side cor- 
responded respectively to the femur and tibia of the 
other. In 35.8 per cent, the right limb was longer than 
the left, the average preponderance of the former over 
the latter in these cases being 3.3 per cent.'* 

From these data, with many other measurements, it 
looks as if the left leg generally is longer than the right 
one, but the difference between the limbs is greater in 
the average when it is the longer than when the right 
is the larger. To show that there is unequal develop- 
ment, if 200 pairs of men's shoes are carefully measured, 

35 per cent, of these shoes would show that the foot was 

(67) 



68 TRAINING. 

about the same size. In 44 per cent, the left foot would 
be the longer. In 21 per cent, it would be the right 
one. If women's shoes are measured and compared as 
to difference of relative size of feet, the left foot is fre- 
quently the smaller. This would arise from the fact 
that women are not as active as men. 

What deductions are to be made from this? It is 
that man being right-handed, and using that side of his 
body the most, nature, by an act of great judgment, pre- 
vents the overgrowth of that side by forcing the left half 
of the man to do its proportion of work. Then follows 
the rule that we can make no isolated movement. If 
we apparently work one set of muscles, others, even 
those far distant, must respond. If not for this, we 
should be lop-sided. 

The right-handed movement, being more common, 
seeks for its balance. We could not strike a heavy blow 
without something to rely upon to hold us up in a cer- 
tain measure. The blow might be misspent, or wrong 
in direction and useless. It might by its own force carry 
us off our feet. If, as in boxing, we reverse matters and 
lead off from the left— which is the true weapon of of- 
fence — the right leg steadies us. The blacksmith wields 
his hammer with his right hand and steadies himself 
with the left leg. 

Generally the left leg is the stronger, as men usually 
are right-handed ; but if they are left-handed, in order 
to gain balance, the opposite leg gets up the additional 
power. This is the reason why we put the left foot in 



TRAINING. 69 

the stirrup, though a left-handed soldier would take his 
seat with greater alacrity did he use his right foot. 

Infantry starts off with the left foot, and in working 
the bicycle, almost always, if conditions are the same, 
we take the left pedal to start the movement and we 
mount with the left foot. Those who have made a 
careful study of the left foot, declare that it has more 
skill of movement than the right one. The left leg and 
the foot have certainly acquired additional strength, and 
the stimulant has improved the possibilities of the foot. 

If you watch a skater, his nice cutting and flourishing 
depend rather on his left than his right foot. When a 
man dances, his left foot seems to be better under con- 
trol, but women dance equally well with both feet. A 
leading authority states that a rope-dancer always places 
more reliance on the left leg, excepting when he or she 
happens to be left-handed, then the right foot and leg 
do most of the work. 

With the mental effects of this prevalence of a right- 
hand initial movement and an unconscious response 
from the left, I have nothing to do. It is said, fol- 
lowing up the idea, that men prefer walking in a circle 
from left to right, and this rule is carried out in the 
tracks for athletic sports where the direction is the 
same. In bicycle races it is very rare not to circle to 
the left, and the supposable reason is, that the first man 
being right-handed, as is the majority, went that way. 

I may present this as an instance of the mental effect 
or tendency : 



^0 TRAINING. 

A little friend struggling with his bicycle made his 
worst falls when working away in the usual direction. 
Asking if he might take the other direction — to the 
right — he did so, and got along fairly well, and was not 
unhorsed. Some time afterward, I found out that he 
was left-handed and had to rely more on his right than 
on his left leg. 

This whole subject is a curious one, but where the real 
interest of it lies, is in its physiological consideration. 

Always working up to the idea of the man who is to be 
perfectly developed, it would never do for us to have a 
lop-sided athlete or a man who was strong on one side 
and not strong on the other. The natural tendency to 
make more muscle on one side than the other, we can 
hardly ever entirely prevent. As I rise in the morning, 
I do most of my work with my right hand if I am right- 
handed. It may begin when I take my bath, my shave, 
eat my breakfast, cut my bread, butter it, sip my coffee, 
and when I write or when I amuse myself — as at bil- 
liards or ten-pins, or anything calling on the work of my 
hands. 

If I cannot help, then, this right hand, or right arm, 
or right side development, I have at least the satisfaction 
of knowing that nature is bringing about something of 
an equilibrium on the left side of me. What I am to 
care most for is to prevent exaggerations of form. I 
must not help directly toward the establishment of any 
physical deformities. The perfect man would be an am- 
bidexter. To prove this self-evident fact, no argument 



TRAINING. 71 

IS necessary. The loss of a hand or of an arm forces a man 
to transfer fiis work from one side to the other, and it is 
wonderful to see how soon, through necessity, a left 
hand acquires all the cunning of the right. 

We find that nature gives to the feet the same deli- 
cate manipulative functions as the hands, only civiliza- 
tion declines monkey-like imitations. Without being 
obliged to do it, but only because the savage finds it 
more convenient, he picks up the smallest object with 
his toes. In the highest degree the toe and foot '' dex- 
terity '' is found in artists who, born without arms, paint 
creditable pictures with their toes. 

Natural inclinations toward physical eccentricities, 
which are not visible, may be made in time to take the 
shape of exaggerations or real physical deformities. 
Such may be cultivated, and nowhere else so unfortu- 
nately as in the gymnasium ; that is to say, when work 
is done without intelligent supervision. 

Lagrange presents in a somewhat distressing manner 
many cases of deformity produced by exercise. Let us 
understand what the author means by a " deformity.*' 
The definition of ''to deform" is to make anything ill- 
shaped and displeasing to the eye. Though the supposi- 
tion might be that deformity cannot exist without dis- 
ease, M. Lagrange does not mean that ; he rather looks 
on it as an aesthetic sense. 

If I am an artist and want a model, I may not incline 
toward taking either a pugilist or a coal-heaver to sit. for 
me, unless I wanted to draw a fistic fight or a scene of 



72 TRAINING. 

laborious toil. If we look at the work of the Greek 
when he shows us the winners of the Olympian games, 
these men of marble represent the absolute perfection of 
human form. M. Lagrange asks : 

^* Could we ever make a statue of a demi-god if we 
took for a model a trapeze performer ? '* 

The next time a clever trapeze performer stands in 
his tights, you cannot but help seeing that he is built 
from the waist up, not from the waist down. He is ex- 
aggerated in form. The balance of vigor is all above, 
and nothing below. The form of the triangle, to hold 
within its three lines, the man, has the apex downward. 
That of the woman is the reverse. The apex of her tri- 
angle is her head. If the trapeze man were put in the 
triangle, the lines would hardly hold him. I should not 
want to sketch him, save for study, but not for art's 
sake. 

Look at the trapeze man, not as would an artist, but 
as one inquiring after physiological facts. His back is 
good in breadth, but it is rounded. He has been hang- 
ing so long on his bar that he has absolutely pulled out 
of shape its muscular growth. He has prevented its de- 
velopment. If he had too much muscle on his back, its 
presence would have interfered with his gyrations. 

The end and aim of life has been the trapeze, and he 
may be the crack trapeze performer, but he is by no 
means a well-built man. More than that, he is not put up 
straight. There is too much dorsal curvature. As you 
pick your trapeze man to pieces, you might find that his 



TRAINING. 73 

front developments are not as nice as you would have 
expected. The arms, the shoulders are superb. One 
might say, then, that to have such arms, " to trapeze '* 
has not been to live in vain. 

Not so long ago, seeing a man put on his flannels for 
exercise at the gymnasium, I said, without any claim to 
infallibility : 

** That man has over-bicycled.*' 

*' I do not know exactly if he has over-bicycled him- 
self,'* said the intelligent superintendent of the gymna- 
sium, ^^ but he has won several events. He is all nice 
enough from the waist down, but next to nothing from 
the hips to the top of his head.*' 

I had never seen such an exaggeration before. There 
was the ugly curvature acquired by the clutch at the 
handle of the machine, a restricted muscular develop- 
ment of the shoulders and of the upper arm, but the 
legs and thighs were uncommonly good. All the power 
of this man was below his waist. He was agile enough. 
I saw him throw a clever back-spring, and could not help 
but notice how the propulsion came as it should from 
below, but that aid which arms and back-muscles should 
give to help the general movement were quite wanting. 
While I was looking, the person in charge said: 

" He is defective in wind, and has no staying power. 
He is here to get what he lacks, and I have said to him, 
' Sell your wheel.' " 

My reply to the superintendent was : 

" And capital advice it is." 



74 TRAINING. 

There is a physiological mechanism which tends to 
render an often-repeated attitude permanent. Sticking, 
then, to my special apparatus in a gymnasium — working 
that and nothing else — brings about deformity through 
abuse. Too much work at the parallel bars gives a posi- 
tive forward thrust to the body, and is retained. There 
are forward curvatures just as ugly as the reversed one. 
Relief comes from outside work, where there may be no 
apparatus. 

With fencers, who do nothing else but use the foil, 
there is enormous development of the right arm and 
shoulders and equal growth of the left leg and foot, but 
nature can only do just so much. The left shoulder, 
which has been left in the cold, has no development, 
and real deformity exists in the working right side and 
shoulder, which are lowered. Why is this ? Because the 
position assumed necessitates the forward stoop to the 
right side. There is a forced curvature. 

Young people who are not over strong, and who take 
to fencing at too early an age, show unmistakably this 
right-sided droop. The lunge in fencing may, at the in- 
stant of its delivery, put the man on a straight line as he 
delivers the point, but a man does not lunge all the time. 
The attack is limited, the defence more constant; and, 
as an able maitre (Tarme said to his pupils : 

"Though appearances are nice to look at, learn for 
actual work how to crouch. You must make a bow of 
yourself, so as to launch your arrow with lightning speed 
when the time comes.'' 



TRAINING. 75 

I do not know how far a man who fences with a droop- 
ing shoulder is physically hurt ; maybe so little, that it 
is not worth mentioning, but still, as far as form goes, it 
is something to be avoided. Men who ride profession- 
ally, as cow-boys, certainly have concave legs, because 
they must mould their limbs so as to cling to the body of 
the horse. Horses which pull at the bit induce curvature. 
The modern school of equestrians is, however, opposed 
to bit-hauling, and so the horseman of to-day ought to 
have a fair back. A model of form, without exaggeration, 
is a cavalry officer on his horse. When he gets off his 
mount, if he has lived a life in the saddle, his legs are the 
worst part of him. These three causes M. Lagrange 
lays down as producing unfortunate conditions : 

^'(i) Concentration of muscular effort in a very local- 
ized region, the other parts of the body not sharing in 
the work. 

^' (2) Necessity of maintaining during the exercise an 
attitude in which the axis of the body deviates from its 
normal direction. 

^'(3) Frequent and prolonged performances of move- 
ments which man does not naturally practice, and to 
which his conformation is not adapted.'* 

The first cause of deformity might have fencing as its 
example ; the second, the over-use of the trapeze or 
parallel bars, and the third finds its application in the 
tug-of-war. Regular form, not here nor there, but all 
over the body, should be the object of the teacher of 
gymnastic exercise. 



76 TRAINING. 

I think that a very simple rule for general guidance is 
to remember that the vertebral column is the axis of the 
body, and that by overwork of any muscles in one 
direction more than another, you can throw it out of 
line. The anatomist who understands the character of 
this spinal column, its wonderful flexibility, will tell you 
that it is impossible to have-any over-development which 
is local, that does not bend this great spring of the back. 
If you give it a wrong set it may become a fixed and 
permanent curve, and it will grow in that one direction 
and no other way. Of course I mean only a slight curv- 
ature, and that no appreciable harm can come from it, but 
it is an ugly thing to see, and then certainly it precludes 
perfect flexibility. It may bend in one direction best 
and not easily in another. 

Stooping comes equally from no work at all. The lad 
at school or the girl over her sewing, without sufficient 
play, have their backs bent. Workingmen who ply cer- 
tain crafts have crooked backs. The watch-mender has 
a poor back. Tailors are always round-backed. It can 
be seen, then, how without severe work these accidents 
occur. The cure for the curved backs in children is best 
brought about by gymnastic work. The stoop has 
come as much as anything else from the want of har- 
monious action on the part of the muscles of the back. 

The same twist has been brought about, because of 
over-exercise, certain muscles having been taxed to their 
utmost, while others have been rejected. 

Loads on the heads for children are admirable as pre- 



TRAINING. ^J 

ventives for indination to curvature. The only thing 
to be remembered is that loads must be light. It is 
not the weight that does as much good as the balancing 
action which is called into play. 

I have seen a little girl with a wretched stoop perfectly 
straightened by means of a demijohn which, uncorked, 
held not more than four pounds weight of water. She 
had to carry it a certain distance without spilling it. If it 
fell she got wet and received no reward. Very soon she 
aquired automatically the balancing powers. She straight- 
ened out in two weeks, and from an ugly shambling gait, 
she learned of her own accord to step out straight with 
nice action. 

Heavy weight on a man's or a woman's head acts in a 
detrimental manner. The Italian woman who '^ totes '' 
the tourist's trunk, though she does the work cleverly 
for the time, with age will have a bent back. Something 
must give ; the ribs go first, they tend to close, then 
they pull as girders on the main column, which is the 
back-bone. The spine then must yield. 

The opportunity was given me to take the measure of 
three pitchers who have gained reputations in baseball. 
One of these men had " played ball '' during three years, 
taking very little rest. I considered this man as a type 
of the first-class pitcher, as a right-handed man. Exag- 
gerations of form were barely visible on his right side. 
The muscular development of both arms was about the 
same. I could not see that there was any lowering of the 
right shoulder. The muscles of the waist struck me as 



78 TRAINING. 

being enormous as to size. The marked increase was in 
the left leg, in the muscles of the calf, and the thigh. 
The man's form was, however, to be described as normal. 
He was credited with being a capital all-around man, 
capable of taking any part in the game. 

Another pitcher who had been pitching for a less time 
showed a more marked difference of form. His right 
shoulder was lower than his left one. When stripped, 
this lowering was quite visible. The muscles of his 
whole right side were wonderfully developed. In stand- 
ing he had a forward stoop. Watching him, when in a 
match, I think I noticed that when he delivered the ball, 
he threw his body more forward than do most pitchers. 
He had not the bulk nor the build of the first man, and 
could not, probably, throw as much of his arm-weight 
into the ball, but by general accord it was believed that 
his balls had the greater speed. The left leg had rather 
more development than the right. 

A third man with a left-hand delivery had not been at 
work as long as the other two. He showed distinctly an 
increase in size of the right leg. I am not to suppose, 
then, that pitching at baseball engenders any serious 
disturbances of form. Though the work of the pitcher 
is tremendous, the short intervals of time between de- 
liveries allow him to recuperate his powers. When in 
perfect condition, there is no such thing as a good man 
giving balls with diminished speed at the end of a game. 
The balls may be less effective because not so well 
directed, but the power does not wane. As has been 



TRAINING. 79 

before cited, the last blow of the boxer is likely to be 
just as powerful as the first. During the intervals of 
rest between the rounds, the muscular force has returned 
with amazing rapidity. 

Nothing was appreciable in the form of batters or 
fielders. The all-around qualities of an efficient nine 
take away possibilities of any exaggerated or local mus- 
cular development. I may remark, however, that al- 
though these references to pitchers were derived from 
three men of national reputation in the field of base- 
ball, in order to present reliable data, many more obser- 
vations would be necessary. 

The most notable deformity I know of is found in the 
Esquimaux, who paddle in their skin boats. Their de- 
velopment from waist to shoulders is superb ; from waist 
to feet, they have no more strength than have children. 
They can walk, but cannot run. 



CHAPTER X. 

TRAINING. 

Different applications of the term — The jockey — Consideration 
of human peculiarities — Time in training — When to stop — 
Food, clothing, air, bathing, repose — The human machine 
and its many requirements — The sustaining power — The 
appetite of the man at work — Privation — The Esquimaux — 
Melting out the fat — Organic exhaustion. 

In the use of this term, it must be understood that 
"training'' does not always mean the endeavor to make 
the man physically perfect. Men who dive for pearls on 
the Indian coast work only to improve a capacity for re- 
taining their breath. If a jockey is lo or 20 pounds too 
heavy he trains down, so as to get rid of the excess of 
weight. The jockey has not improved his physical con- 
dition. On the contrary, he has lessened his general 

powers. , 

I have cited as nearest to perfection the " all-around 
man," who is good for all things. I also brought for- 
ward the peculiarities of the individual who from make, 
build, or some cause which escapes us, is better adapted 
for one kind of work than another. We train, then, for 
the accomplishment of certain things. The element of 
time can hardly be disregarded, and we must try to bring 
up a man to his highest efficiency in the shortest in- 
terval. We want certain organs to undergo modifi- 
(80) 



TRAINING. 8 1 

cations, for we are to expect the possibilities of higher 
speed, increasing power, and greater staying abilities. 
We force, as it were. Nature to exert herself to her 
utmost. We are not to go beyond what is normal, but 
still trainers know, do what they may, that this highest 
degree of human efificiency is never a lasting one. The 
time will come when the man under their care is at his 
very best — " ripe '' we might call it. 

This period of perfection may be long or short. It is 
generally short. To keep in condition requires constant 
work. Stop exercise, and condition is lost. Work alone, 
however, is not sufficient. The man who is under train- 
ing is destroying and rebuilding, and rebuilding and de- 
stroying his own edifice. There is a certain time when 
it is supposable that not a particle of the man as he 
existed nine years before, is present to-day. When an 
athlete then goes into training, the atoms of himself are 
always changing. If he is eliminating such things as 
may be opposed to the perfecting of his muscular devel- 
opment, he must be at the same time storing up those 
which are of special advantage to him. As his new 
structure rises through the destruction of the old, he is 
to build himsetf up with choicer materials. To provide 
the man with these much-desired elements, we give him 
carefully selected food. We bring the flesh of the man 
into a healthy condition by clothing him properly ; and 
lastly, we provide him with plenty of pure air, and we 
are careful that he should have the requisite amount of 
sleep. 



82 TRAINING. 

We feed him so that there shall be no waste of tis- 
sue. We call on nothing likely to diminish his pow- 
ers through indigestion. We make him bathe, so as to 
have all the pores of his skin open, for we know that to 
clog his cuticle would be to prevent his getting rid in a 
natural way of such substances as are hurtful to him. 
We do not want him to fatten up, hence we limit his 
starchy food. We want no stimulants, and we give him 
little, if any, alcohol in the fluid he drinks. We make 
him exercise in the open air if the season permits of it. 
He must have good air. The room the man sleeps in 
must have perfect ventilation. The necessity for con- 
stant vigilance in order that a man may be brought up 
to the highest physical condition all trainers know about. 
A mother with her infant ought not to be more solicit- 
ous about the nourishing of her baby, than a trainer as 
to the food of the prize-fighter under his charge. A 
statement of this character seems to be far-fetched, but 
it really is not in the least out of the way. 

Take the thoroughly-trained man, and what have you 
got there ? A mechanism which is strengthened, which 
has a quicker and better movement, which can work 
during a long period. But how was this mechanism 
created ? At the expense of certain substances in the 
body, which having been assimilated, have now almost 
disappeared. Everything has gone to improve bone 
and muscle. Here is a machine. It moves splendidly, 
only it no longer carries its coal with it. This ought to 
explain thoroughly that necessity the man in training 



TRAINING. 83 

has for the proper kind of food. He has worked out, 
or is working out, the sustaining power within him. 
How otherwise could he keep up, if not by constant 
renewals from the outside ? This may be said to be 
the most commonplace of statements and relating to all 
questions of human sustenance ; but the food given the 
athlete, he takes and must take in larger quantity than 
the man who does no work. A man, like a horse, if off 
his feed, is lost. I should be afraid to state outside of the 
profession, the enormous eating capacity of some men 
when in training. It far exceeded any dietary regulations 
I have ever seen printed in the books. It had to be regu- 
lated as to quality. Restricting the quantity would have 
been to ruin not a few of the subjects. I never have 
seen cases of collapse more sudden, than when men under 
training have had their provisions cut down by a theorist. 

I never have considered such heavy devourers of food 
as gluttons. Slightly scaling down such demands, using 
discrimination as to the kind of food, and administering 
it at short intervals, I never have experienced any seri- 
ous troubles. I have invariably made a distinction be- 
tween the power a man has of resisting muscular exer- 
tion and the bearing of privations. An Esquimaux, 
because used to it, will stand cold and hunger better 
perhaps than an athlete. 

In this consideration of the training of the man, I 
return to the question of fat, for if my argument is 
good for anything, it must be hurtful to try and " melt 
out '' or work off all the fat in the man. 



84 TRAINING. 

There is nothing in training to be dreaded more than 
organic exhaustion. I have made the statement that 
break-downs come from poor physical conditions. Here, 
at least, the effects are at once perceptible. It might 
have been more or less difficult to bring the man around. 
It was very much worse when organic exhaustion set 
slowly in. This is undiscoverable at the beginning, 
for bad effects have had so long their sway as to be 
beyond the power of curing. 



CHAPTER XL 

FAT. 

False theories — The disadvantages of too much fat — Old ideas^ 
Fat a reserve fund — Its use — We build with fat — How men in 
training may take on fat — The distressed trainer — Fat an in- 
tegral part of our organic structure — ^Japanese wrestlers — Fat 
offering differing powers of resistance — Where it is not wanted 
— Its presence in the abdomen — Pugilists — When fat inter- 
feres — No fat in the lungs — Over-production of carbonic gas 
— The sprinter — Inspiration and respiration — Methods to pre- 
vent obesity — The Schweninger cure — The Aertel method — 
How much fat is normal — Height in relation to weight — 
When is a person stout — Discrimination as to kind of food — 
What makes fat — The pig — Starchy and saccharine substances 
make fat — Food in youth — Inactivity and obesity — Banting 
— The carbo-hydrates— Table of weights —Dr. S. W. Mitchell's 
comparison of English and Americans — Massage — The blood- 
supply — The danger of using "anti-fats'* — The change for 
the better in training — How to impair a man's vitality. 

I HAVE said that exercise decreases the quantity of 
fat, and that this diminution is what we want to bring 
about, but I do not mean to advance the idea that we 
should work away on the human body until fat disap- 
peared entirely. In studying this subject, I find among 
many excellent authorities, a disposition to make dis- 
tinctions of fat according to location. " Run,'* writes 
some one, " that is the way to remove internal fat," and 
I am to suppose that reference is made to the fat in the 

(85) 



86 TRAINING. 

abdominal regions. Nothing is more true than that a 
man with a distended paunch cannot run. Old methods 
of training, founded on ignorance, advanced the idea 
that the perfectly trained man ought not to have any 
fat at all. You may still see in newspaper reports, de- 
scribing athletic events, '^ When Smith stripped there 
was not an ounce of fat to be seen on his whole body.*' 
Nothing can be more absurd than a statement of this 
kind. Maclaren presents the subject of fat in a sensible 
manner ; and he writes that the getting rid of " all 
fat '' was an '* old, venerated theory,*' which when car- 
ried out did a great deal of harm. 

That the elimination of the excess of fat facilitates 
work, is not to be questioned. If I waddle with twenty- 
five pounds more fat than I should have normally, I 
carry about with me so much additional weight. I 
handicap myself, but that is not the only thing at fault 
brought about by this extra adipose tissue. 

If I try to walk fast, having more work to do in lug- 
ging around this extra weight, I must use more exer- 
tion, i.e.y I can only get speed by increasing my draught 
and burning up additional fuel. There is my coal-bin 
of human fat. I burn that up, I get red-hot. What is 
worse, having increased my blood temperature, the in- 
ternal fluids remain longer hot, for the simple reason 
that I am like a steam-pipe covered with felting. I 
cannot cool off, because the fat prevents normal or grad- 
ual change of temperature. 

We have no rieht to abuse fat, however. Why did 



TRAINING. 87 

nature put it there at all, if it were a hurtful sub- 
stance ? It is so easy to find fault with things, the uses 
of which we know nothing about. Fat is a reserve 
fund, something for us to draw upon. It may be as 
bullion in a bank, not negotiable in the street because 
of its being too bulky to handle, but still it can be con- 
verted into currency. If a man started as lean as a mu- 
seum freak, and I had to train him, I should certainly 
try to fatten him at first. I should want to know as 
soon as I could if there was anything to build on. As 
to fat itself in the man who is under training, I, with 
many others, know of individuals intrusted to our care, 
who invariably increase in bulfi: when put to work. They 
'^ trained fat.'* It would be super-arrogation for me to 
insist that the increase was due to improvement in the 
quality of their flesh, their muscles, or their bones. 
This I do not believe. It must have been due to the 
taking on of a little more fat. 

A year ago a gentleman, a leading member of an ath- 
letic club, who was theoretically and practically pro- 
ficient, tried his hand at training a friend, and very intel- 
ligently he did it up to a certain point, when he came 
to me in hot haste. This is what he said : 

'^ Do what I can, Mr. J is training up and not 

down. He turns the scale eight pounds heavier this 
week than he did when he began three weeks ago.'* 

"Does he show improvement enough to set off this 
increase of weight ? '' I asked. 

" Certainly he does. Never was so eager for work, 



88 TjRAINING. 

and he is behaving splendid ; but, oh, that eight pounds ! 
I can't cut down his work, or lessen his diet." 

" Where does he show this increase of bulk ? ** 

" Nowhere. Measures are increasing everywhere. I 
can't sweat him with Turkish baths — but eight pounds 
—oh, it's dreadful ! " 

" I will tell you what you do," I said. " Let him se- 
verely alone. If he breathes clear and full, I would not 
bother. It's a natural case of increasing weight, and it 
is all right. Change your method with your man, and 
you will alter his condition and not to his advantage." 

My advice, considered at least consoHng, was, I am 
pleased to say, adhered 1:o. The morning before the 
event the young representative of the club was a full 
twelve and a half pounds heavier than at the beginning 
of his training. He was a chunky, sturdily-built man, 
and training had not reduced his full, round cheeks. 
There was a pleasant smile of contentment on his face. 
He felt good, good all over. I thought him just a little 
fatter than I would have liked him to be. He was 
pitted against the champion of another club, who was 
rather gaunt below the waist-band, with hollow cheeks. 
Not to extend this incident, our fat young man, in the 
gamiest long distance race I ever saw (non-professional), 
came in just a foot and two inches ahead ; of the two men 
the stout young man seemed to be the least used up. 

The best authority I know of calls fat in particular in- 
dividuals " integral parts of their organic structure. It 
is a constitutional tissue, and has, so to speak, freedom 



TRAINING. 89 

among the anatomical elements which accompany it.'* 
I do not hanker for stout-built men, save, of course, for 
heavy muscular work, where bulk and fat ought to be 
present. It is a false idea that much fat prevents mus- 
cular possibilities. If that were the case, Japanese 
wrestlers would not exist. 

Fat — no matter where it is found in excess in the hu- 
man system — can be gotten rid of. It ofifers, however, 
peculiar aspects as to resistance. It may be deposited 
largely in one part of the body and not in another. It 
must not be allowed to be present at all in some por- 
tions of the system, as in the heart. Generally it comes 
rapidly, and in apparent excess in the region of the ab- 
domen. In exercise, there is the place where it seems 
to be most persistent. I have known pugilists who, af- 
ter a long rest, have found all their trouble in getting 
proper " form *' below the belt. 

Too much fat must interfere, not as much with the res- 
piratory organs, as with the quality of the products of com- 
bustion which leaves the system. In describing that as- 
phyxiation arising from sudden exercise, I have stated 
that the causes for it were complex. There is no fat in 
the lungs, but in the stomach. The air may burn that 
fat in quantity, and so give an excess of carbonic acid, 
and then wind-troubles come. When you are rid of that 
fat — some of it, at least — the man gets his wind and 
keeps his wind better, not because fat is a mechanical, 
but a real chemical obstruction. With too much fat the 
man is poisoning his own exhalations. 



90 TRAINING. 

Take a sprinter, and his inspirations may be as high 
as forty-four a minute, while in repose they ought never 
to be beyond twenty. Forty-four breathings in the sixty 
seconds! That is one inspiration and respiration — 
eighty-eight movements — each accomplished in a frac- 
tion of a second. 

I have written about *^ adaptation.'* Nature permits, 
by means of habit and use, of our doing many wonder- 
ful things, but never for very long. What would be a 
terrible strain on the individual unaccustomed to abnor- 
mal breathings, experts bear without trouble. As this 
matter of fat should be thoroughly understood, for its 
further elucidation I present the advantages derived 
from eliminating fat, so that the comfort of the indi- 
vidual can be carried out. 

' The fat man has rarely any desire to figure in the 
gymnasium or on the track. All he wants is to be able 
to move about comfortably, not be stared at in the 
streets, or he may long for such reduction in form as to 
enable him to diminish his tailor's bill. The latest the- 
ory in regard to diminishing the quantity of fat is due to 
Dr. Schweninger. The credit of the system belongs 
properly to Professor Aertel. With the peculiarities of 
German nomenclature, the Schweninger method is called 
'* cure ''; the idea being that morbid obesity is the disease. 

A normal man — not an athlete — is supposed to carry 
about with him one-twentieth of his weight in fat. A 
normal woman will be beautiful with about one-fifteenth 
of fat. From the accurate anthropometric measure- 



TRAINING. 91 

ments kept by insurance actuaries, a man of five feet 
seven at the age of thirty ought to weigh from one hun- 
dred and forty to one hundred and fifty pounds. A 
woman of five feet two ought to weigh one hundred and 
twelve pounds. The accepted addition for each inch 
in height is five pounds, and so a six-footer at thirty 
ought to weigh from one hundred and sixty-five to one 
hundred and seventy-five pounds. If there is a weight 
of fifteen pounds added, then there is inclination to 
stoutness, and it might be said *'that those men or 
women are fat." But such additions by no means in- 
crease the risk of the insurance. With us, our examin- 
ing doctors rather incline to insure stout or fat people 
than lean ones, and for this good reason: If illness 
comes, stout persons with fat on them stand the strain 
of disease better than the thin ones. 

As fat comes from food, and we must eat to live, let us 
care less for the quantity and more for the quality of 
the food we consume. If by eating a certain kind of 
food I take only an additional quarter of an ounce of fat 
per diem, do not get rid of it, but keep on storing the 
fat ; in ten years' of accumulation of fat I shall add not 
less than fifty-seven pounds to my weight. 

When I fatten a pig, from whence come the peculiar 
substances which make this fat? Such matters have 
been carefully studied. If I fed pure fat to the pig, I 
would not produce fat. Fat is not made from fat. It 
comes from the animal having been fed on starchy and 
saccharine substances. I fatten him on corn. 



92 TRAINING. 

When we are young, all kinds of alimentary substances 
are taken with good results. We want certain food for 
the bones, the muscles, and the flesh. There can hardly 
be anything presented in excess. We use it all up in 
building ourselves up. 

When we stop growing, we do not want as much of 
certain kinds of food. Then we ought to exercise selec- 
tion, and particularly so if we lead a sedentary kind of 
life. Inactivity leads directly to obesity. It is' 
brought about by excess of food and too free use of bev- 
erages. Sometimes, being an inherited tendency, we 
have to use great precautions in order to prevent it. 
Although William Banting has been more or less ridi- 
culed of late because "he was not scientific,'' still, in 
many cases, his system was shown efficient up to a cer- 
tain point. I am not so positive as are those who are 
opposed to it, that it brought about any dangerous con- 
sequences. It might have been difficult of application. 
In fact, save by exercise, I know of no method of " thin- 
ning down '' which is not irksome. 

In certain cases I must admit that the Banting method 
might have induced heart-feebleness, but I do not see 
why lung disease or dropsy necessarily followed the 
London undertaker's method. All the systems — 
whether of Banting, Ebstein, Aertel, or Schweninger 
(the two latter being the same) — depend on a reduction 
in the consumption of the carbo-hydrates in food, and 
by the carbo-hydrates is meant starchy food ; for, both 
theoretically and practically, it is undoubtedly starchy 



TRAINING. 93 

food that makes fat, and if indulged in to excess with- 
out exercise, obesity follows. 

What the Aertel-Schweninger method tries to do is, 
to give such food or kinds of food which they believe 
will remove the fat if it be made. This is all nice 
enough in theory, but the results do not seem positive. 
What these professors insist upon is exercise, and in the 
Schweninger rules, mountain-heights are to be scaled. 
Generally presented, the diet of the Schweninger or 
Aertel cure - is, to eat lean meat (roasted or boiled), 
green vegetables, and not more than six ounces of 
bread per diem, and during the twenty-four hours, six- 
teen ounces of fluids are to be used, and not a drop of 
beer is permissible. In satisfying thirst with tea, coffee, 
or milk, never must more than five ounces of fluid be 
taken at a meal. To walk three or four hours a day is 
obligatory, and to mount a staircase once or twice a 
day is part of the work. 

About six weeks to two months brings some relief 
from obesity. There can be no question, since, in addi- 
tion to selection of food, exercise enters into the cure, a 
patient would be benefited by the Schweninger system. 

I am a little doubtful whether this cure is of any bene- 
fit for heart disease. 

In Banting's book many useful references may be 
found as to the proportion of stature and weight desira- 
ble from insurance statistics. According to these meas- 
urements of height and weight : 



94 









TRAINING. 








A man of 5 


feet I 


should weigh 


120 F 


)OU 


A ^ 




n 


2 




<< 




126 




A ^ 




a 


3 




<< 




133 




A ^ 




a 


4 




« 




136 




A ' 




ii 


5 




« 




142 




A * 




a 


6 




« 




145 




A ' 




a 


7 




« 




148 




A ' 




a 


8 




<( 




15s 




A ' 




i( 


9 




« 




162 




A ' 




it 


10 




<( 




169 




A ' 




it 


II 




<( 




174 




A ' 


' 6 


^^ 







ti 




178 





It will be seen that five pounds to the inch is not always 
a constant factor. As to Banting's own experiences, he 
states that on August 26, 1862, he weighed two hundred 
pounds. By following out his system, on the 26th of 
September, he had lost forty-six pounds. Let me take 
the opposite condition : A man or a woman is thin and 
wishes to take on flesh and fat. My best authority for 
such matter is that presented by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell. 
He states that ''the quantity of fat which is healthy 
for individuals varies with the sex, the climate, the hab- 
its, the season, the time of life, the race, and the breed.** 
This distinguished authority shows that women '' may 
lose or acquire large amounts of adipose matter without 
any corresponding loss or gain in vigor.*' 

It looks as if were we to weigh forty English men and 
women, the Britons would lower Ihe scales if the same 



TRAINING. 95 

number of Americans were pitted against them, but that 
does not mean that we have reduced our flesh by exer- 
cise. It is probable that the English exercise on an av- 
erage more than we do. Character, food, and beer- 
drinking increase weight, but then, 'cHmate has much to 
do with fat-making. 

To fatten, then, artificially, is to feed carefully; to 
give additional rest to the person, but not to neglect 
muscular growth. How can muscular force be brought 
about and a patient remain in repose? By massage. 
This is a method of stimulating the muscles by friction. 
Before this it has been stated that there can be no nor- 
mal nutrition of the body without muscular movements. 
For health we want currents of life to flow through the 
body. " The lessened blood-supply is a result of dimin- 
ished functional movement, and we need to create a con- 
stant demand in the inactive parts. Every active muscle 
is practically a throbbing heart, squeezing its vessels 
empty while in motion, and relaxing so as to allow them 
to fill anew. To artificially work the muscles to bring 
about a healthy stimulation, to feed the body for lan- 
guid and invalid patients, is to restore life.** 

What do we see, then ? We have studied the meth- 
ods of reducing fat. Diet will account for so much and 
exercise for a good deal more. If we want to make fat, 
we feed in a certain way, and we exercise the muscles 
artificially. It is not at once perceptible how much this 
exercise — the working of the muscle — has to do with 
health. 



96 TRAINING. 

The purposes of this book on training would not fulfil 
their proper function if a vehement protest were not 
made directed toward those wicked and poisonous sub- 
stances known as ** anti-fats/' Any one who buys such 
nostrums runs the risk of life. It is impossible, without 
certain precautions, to change one's condition. There is 
but one natural way to do it : by means of careful exer- 
cise, combined with selection of food. If a man or 
woman is over thirty, even this effort to reduce weight 
should never be carried to excess. It is always wiser to 
consult a physician. 

It is the ignorance of the public which renders the 
sale of such quack medicines possible. Every such com- 
pound should be carefully analyzed before permission is 
granted for its sale. If I wanted to thin a man down 
rapidly I could do so, by means of acid solutions or by 
the use of caustic substances. I might induce inflam- 
mation of the bowels and so thin down a man, until I 
had him reduced to a skeleton and ready for his coffin. 

In treating of the subject of the reduction of fat, 
pains has been taken to present the subject in its fullest 
light. There has been nothing relating to training, 
which has been more overlooked than this question of 
fat, and misstatements in regard tojt are many. 

Not to understand the common sense of the subject 
is to fail in bringing up men to their utmost degree of 
efficiency. To train down, to take all the sap out of a 
man, is more frequent than is supposed. Fifteen years 
ago, I rarely went to see an athletic event that I did not 



TRAINING. 97 

notice two or three men who had been brought down 
too low. In a pretty wide experience, I may have seen 
a man worked '' too fine '' who won, and I have said, 
" Well, an exception proves the rule/' But then when I 
have followed the performances of 'this particular man 
for a year or more, I have found that I had seen him win 
only once, and never after that had the palm of victory 
been his. He had lost his powder. He never had been 
able to regain it. It seems to me to be little short of 
wickedness to impair a man's vitality, as was once the 
habit. To-day, I rarely notice such worn-out men, and 
it is because better sense prevails. 

I have occasionally entered protests about the light 
weights of men when looking over boating crews, and 
studying the totals of weight before the men went into 
training and when stripped for the pull. I think an incli- 
nation to fine down men still exists in the United States. 
I notice, however, that in the, English Universities this 
diminution of original weights in training is only carried 
out to a moderate degree. Improved methods of diet 
keep a man to-day in better condition. Phenomenal 
work never is possible when the man himself is not nor- 
mal, and that covers the whole subject, as far as I 
understand it. 



CHAPTER XII. 

FOOD. 

Food requirements vary with conditions — The Guacho — Why 
we use meat — The Coolie diet — Quality of food — Water in 
food — Concentrated food — What a man eats as to its weight 
— The hydro-carbons — The nitrogenous food — What makes 
muscle, what fat — The workman's power measured in tons — 
Demand for food — Quality, not quantity — The cooking of 
food — Regimen of the man in training — Why pork is not 
used— When to eat — Why digestion stops — The tired woman 
— Do no work on an empty stomach — Variety of food — Bolt- 
ing — Quantity of food — Maclaren — The ravenous man — 
Use of beer, wine, or alcoholic fluids — Tea, coffee, chocolate, 
cocoa — Boils — Quantity of fluid — Restrictions — A dried-up 
man — Method of assuaging thirst — Why ice-water is hurtful — 
Cramps — Time of drinking — Adulterated and aerated drinks 
— Ginger-ale — English methods with use of beer — Wine — 
Bread and fat making — The starch in bread — Why bread 
should be used stale and toasted — Doughy bread — Greasy 
bread — Rice — Oatmeal — The Scotch — Advantage of the 
frequent cooking of starchy food — Potatoes — Vegetables — 
Salads — Onions — Fruits — Poultry — Personal experience — 
Condiments^Changes in taste during training — Butter — To- 
bacco — Use of medicines — Bad effects of pills and purges — 
The trainer not a doctor — Blood-letting — Russian baths — The 
oarsman and the Turkish bath — Powder — A pretty skin — A 
clean skin — The use of water — The pores of the skin— Per- 
spiration — What is in solution in perspiration — Use of soap — 
Hot and cold bathing — The cuticle — The sponge bath — Rub- 
bing down — When to bathe. 

Food requirements vary with human conditions. Ac- 
cording to the expenditure taking place, so materials are 

(98) 



TRAINING. • 99 

to be supplied in proportion to the waste. " Under ex- 
posure to hard labor, to high and low temperatures, 
consumption differs.'' The supply of food, then, should 
be so regulated as to meet all these requirements. 

What we want to do with the man who is under train- 
ing, is to furnish him with such food as will increase his 
muscular force, give him flesh-forming substances and 
diminish fat-creating aliments. I am rather doubtful 
if we gave a man under training a Guacho diet, that is, 
one of pure meat without an ounce of bread or vege- 
tables, whether we would not produce within the man's 
economy a certain quantity of fat. What the man 
under heavy exercise does is to burn that fat quickly off 
so that there can be no surplusage of it. We must use 
meat, because experience shows us that meat, more 
quickly than anything else, gives quality to muscles. It 
is not to be supposed, however, that eaters of farinaceous 
compounds are not strong. There are Coolies of pro- 
digious strength who have never eaten anything else 
but rice and butter. 

The quantity of food consumed by the ordinary man 
at work is generally presented as weighing about 46 
ounces. There is superabundance of water in these 46 
ounces, because the food so dissolved in water is more 
readily digested and so bulk seems to be a necessity. If 
we were to take and dry these 46 ounces, they would be 
reduced to a small volume. Instead of 46 ounces, we 
would have about 13 ounces. Now we know that highly 
concentrated food is not readily assimilated. 



lOO TRAINING. 

Taking the various substances consumed — such as 
meat, eggs, milk, bread, sugar, vegetables, and the fats — 
we would get at something like the following divisions. 

The workingman has used in the 24 hours : 4^ oz. of 
meat, eggs or milk, or nitrogenous food ; 3 oz. of fat 
(hydro-carbon) ; 14^ oz. of bread, sugar, or vegetables 
containing starchy matter — the carbo-hydrates ; i oz. of 
salt, as the components of lime, sodium, the phosphates, 
etc., etc. 

Prison diet may be generally represented to consist of 
about 52 oz. of moist food, with a less proportion of 
meat. 

For all general purposes, we divide food into the two 
categories of those which contain nitrogen and those 
which do not. In the human body, considered as a 
machine, nitrogenous food, such as exists in meat, eggs, 
or milk, goes directly to make the muscles, the flesh, 
and the bones. A perfect assorting process takes place 
within the system. By some marvellous power, ni- 
trogenous substances are converted into the springs, 
levers, and couplings of the human mechanism. What 
the nitrogenous substances do is not less useful. They 
supply the coal which brings the steam up to its pres- 
sure. When we exercise, the non-nitrogenous elements 
are burnt. 

There is generally great ignorance as to estimation of 
the actual work a man does. Dr. Parkes says that the 
average daily work of a man who labors in the open air 
is equivalent to lifting 250 to 350 tons a foot high. In 



TRAINING. lOI 

a heavy day*s work he would exceed a lift of 400 tons. 
Take an ordinary twenty miles walk on a level country 
road, and you have called forth a force which would 
have lifted 353 tons a foot. If the road be up hill, it 
would be measured by 75 tons more. 

Can it not then at once be understood what are the 
demands of the athlete who is going through hard work ? 
Does any one imagine that a boating crew in training 
has a scales and measure brought in on the mess table, 
and that the coach acts as a dispensing apothecary ? A 
mutton chop rare varies very much in size, its bulk 
having to do with the breed of sheep and the peculiar 
cut of the butcher. Within certain limits, quantity may 
not be looked at. It is quality above all things which is 
to be considered, and also the time when repasts are to 
be taken. As to preparation of food, the cook should 
have due notice given him of the requirements of 
those who eat. There has been a great hue and cry 
of late in regard to raw meat, and the dangers accruing 
from the transferring of contagion in the animal to 
the man who eats of that animal. Raw beefsteaks or 
too rare mutton chops are not easily digested. The 
strength-giving qualities are not as readily absorbed as 
when a chop or a steak is properly cooked, neither too 
rare nor too well done. Over-cooked meat is worse 
than none at all. 

From a meat diet, all veal and pork are to be excluded. 
Veal is immature food, as is even lamb. Of course, the 
cooking of veal like that of green apples changes its 



102 TRAINING. 

character, but in the best cooked veal or lamb, to get 
the same amount of nutrients, according to Professor 
Attwater, you have to eat more of them. A call is then 
made for increase of digestive power, and consequent 
loss of vital force. Pork is tabooed because it is indi- 
gestible, and contains less muscle-making ingredients 
than any other meat. 

As to the time of eating, nature generally suggests 
that. Regularity is an important factor. A rule always 
to be followed, is not to eat too near the time of taking 
exercise, or too soon after it. Does it not stand to 
reason that having consumed a meal and then taking 
exercise, the digestive functions must be disturbed? 
One set of vital currents has its full head on, trying to 
assimilate the food, when another action diametrically 
opposed to it is called upon. Then digestion stops, and 
to the disadvantage of the stomach and the muscles. 
You are drowsy or feel lassitude after a meal, and for 
the good reason that the circulation is really being with- 
drawn from your brain to work in other parts of the 
body where its presence is required. 

It is always bad to eat at once after a heavy pull. 
You have not waited until an equilibrium of forces has 
been brought about. The call you make has had too 
brief a notice. Take the extreme case of a woman who 
has over-walked, or over-shopped herself. She is just in 
time for dinner, but is too tired to eat, though she does 
try. She eats without appetite and her food is not 
digested. Had she waited a half hour, her system would 



TRAINING. 103 

have been in equipoise. Then she would readily have 
accepted food. To work on an empty stomach is to 
commit a first-class foolishness. In the morning spin, 
I always advise taking some little thing to eat, if it 
be only biscuit or a bit of toast before work. Two or 
three mouthfuls often stop nausea, and that mean feel- 
ing which spoils a whole day. 

I believe in variety of food. I would rather vary beef 
and mutton, giving a man one meal of beef, and another 
of mutton. I have found some men who, even in 
their senses, had an abhorrence for mutton, and I have 
thought they were not quite as good for being addicted 
to the one regimen of beef. 

I despise bolting. When I have presided at such 
meals, partaken of by a boat's crew, I must confess to 
have given instructions to the cook that, once the repast 
had opened, not to hurry too much the sequence of the 
menu. I may have been laughed at, among well-bred 
gentlemen, as one not acquainted with decent manners; 
but I have said : " Gentlemen, pray do not bolt. I do 
not perceive that you use your knives in lieu of your 
forks, but you do not seem, some of you, to appreciate 
the use of your teeth. Mastication, perfect mastication, 
has much to do in the perfecting of muscle. Take your 
time. I do not mean to say you stuff, only you show 
immoderate haste. We are not pie-eaters bent on break- 
ing the record.'' 

Maclaren gives excellent advice as to the quantity of 
the solid food to be taken. It will vary *^ with habits 



104 TRAINING. 

and conditions of life and occupation, and age, and tem- 
perament, and climate, and season, and time/' I have 
never seen a man suffer from over-feeding when in train- 
ing. Perhaps if a ravenous man were under my charge, 
and I had seen an inclination on his part to excess, I 
may have wanted to lessen somewhat the food supply, 
but I never saw a glutton. I do not think gluttony ex- 
ists in an intelligent man. Appetites are large, but not 
beyond the call nature requires. 

I am entirely opposed to beer, wine, or alcohol, in any 
shape or guise, excepting its use as a medicine. I may 
never have trained a man without having a bottle of 
brandy handy, but it was only uncorked when the race 
was over. I give tea, and only semi-occasionally coffee ; 
and when I have served coffee, it has been weak. I 
am not an advocate of chocolate or cocoa. I think 
I can make fat, more fat than I want, by means of 
chocolate. 

There is one thing that wrecks a man, and that is 
boils. With Maclaren, I am of the opinion that beer 
induces boils. In three instances, in teams of eight 
men, the only two men affected with boils had been 
beer-drinkers. That they did not have a drop of beer 
while I was working them, I am positive. The boils 
may have come from prior lager-beer drinking. How 
different are modern ideas from those of the past may 
be seen in the statement that twenty-five years ago a 
pugilist in training could not get along without at least 
eight pints of ** old ale '' per diem. 



TRAINING. 105 

As to the question of how much water or tea a man 
may drink when in active training, that depends on the 
individual and the weather. When a man is in fine 
training, his exertions being minimized, he perspires 
less. The awkward dancer has his shirt-collar always 
limp. Not having gained mastery over his legs, he per- 
spires all over. Nevertheless the athlete who is at his 
work is not in normal condition when he does not sweat. 
He must perspire, not to get rid of the water alone, 
which, as it evaporates on the surface of his body, pre- 
vents his over-heating himself, but the moisture carries 
off with it some of the solid products which may over- 
charge his system. He is getting rid of his surplus in 
the simplest way. " Why,'' asks Mr. Maclaren, " should 
there be restrictive laws on this subject of drinking?" 
There used to be some stupid fancy that a man in train- 
ing should have plenty to eat and nothing, or next to 
nothing, to drink. Like food, it is only a question of 
when to drink. 

After a hard pull, or a stiff run, the tongue is some- 
times so dry that it rattles apparently in the mouth. 
The man has worked every drop of superfluous water 
out of his system. The very blood in his veins craves 
dilution. Then temperate use of water should only be 
allowed. A man can cleanse his mouth with water, and 
at once a great deal of it is naturally absorbed. Let ten 
minutes elapse and then several mouthfuls of water can 
be taken. In a quarter of an hour afterward the neces- 
sary water can be taken. 



I06 TRAINING. 

I am not an Englishman, and have no prejudices 
against ice-water under ordinary circumstances ; but I 
cry, "beware of ice-water*' to assuage extraordinary 
thirst, especially when you are red-hot after training. I 
have seen such cramps follow the douching the system 
with ice-water as to make a prime man utterly worthless 
for a week to come. I should saytithat water in sum- 
mer, at not more than 55 degrees F., would always be 
cold enough. I believe that more lasting injuries are 
brought about by carelessness as to the time of drinking 
than by anything else. There are many rules of thumb 
as to the methods of drinking. Many books say only 
drink after eating, not during the meal. I consider this 
as having no scientific foundation to rest upon. I should 
not advise pouring down your tea or your coffee all 
at once, but take it during meals if you feel so inclined, 
but never take a drink of ice-water while you are in 
training. 

I am chary as to the use of acidulated drinks, as 
lemonade, even if taken at rare intervals. There is a 
tendency among young men, who have been used to 
stimulants, to crave for aerated waters, and a very mod- 
erate employment of these waters I have not found 
hurtful ; but ginger-ale, as a stimulant, I know from 
experience is hurtful. Tyros on the cinder track have 
often come to me, after sharp exercise, and have com- 
plained of nausea, and have begged for a bottle of 
ginger-ale. It seemed a simple thing to ask for, but I 
have declined permitting it, for the good reason that I 



TRAINING. 107 

have known it to spoil a man, for a day or two, when 
he wanted just the next twenty-four or forty-eight hours 
to make him perfect. For symptoms of nervous ex- 
haustion I have found tea to be the best of stimulants, 
and that tea taken warm, without sugar or milk. 

The English system of training differs from the Amer- 
ican one in the fact that the Oxford or Cambridge man 
will take a pint of beer for his dinner or supper, and 
some little wine. I should think that an Englishman, 
being more accustomed to beer, might feel the depri- 
vation of it more than the American. Difference of 
temperament in the two races might account for its be- 
ing advantageous at least to the Englishman. I believe, 
however, since English trainers have very much curtailed 
the quantity of beer, its value as a fluid-giving strength 
has been estimated at its proper worth. I know, too, 
that a great deal of care is taken as to the kind and 
quality of the beer consumed by the Cambridge crew. 
If ever I have given way in my opinions (and there is 
no rule without an exception), I have occasionally ad- 
ministered a wine-glass of sound red wine, but never 
sherry or port. In certain slight losses of tone, and 
looseness of bowels, I have found a small quantity of 
French wine to act as a corrective. 

How bread shall be taken, in what form, is of import- 
ance in training. I want to be so thoroughly under- 
stood about fat-making, that I needs must rehearse this 
subject. Do what we please, unless we starve, we make 
fat. We want to make fat. Because we are always 



I08 TRAINING. 

creating it, that shows that nature craves for fat. But we 
do not want to put it on in layers. To clog the muscles 
with it, to enfold the bowels, to distend the abdomen 
with fat, is to ruin a man for an athlete. If we want 
fat, we would like it to go as fast as it comes. It is our 
store of coal. We are like a steamship employed for 
carrying the mail. This ship, because she is swifter than 
any other steamer, is the one selected. She must carry 
coal for the trip. She is not going to overburden herself 
with two or three times more coal than would suffice 
for that voyage. She only carries a quantity propor- 
tionate to the wants of a single voyage. Every pound 
more she carries would decrease her speed. That is 
nearly the condition of the man with his store of fat 
when exercising. 

Bread, I do not care how you take it, contains starch 
or farinaceous matter. It would not be made of flour 
if it did not. All grain contains starch : wheat, 57 per 
cent.; rye, 64; oats, 60; Indian corn, ()j\ rice, as much 
as 88 per cent. The converting the starch into sugar 
takes place within the body, and this starch so changed 
becomes fat. Swallowed fat does not make fat. Hence, 
in feeding the man under training, we do not want to 
give him excess of the fat-producing aliments. In all 
the '^cures'' tending to prevent obesity, it is the dimin- 
ishing of the farinaceous or non-nitrogenous food that 
the system depends on. When bread is stale, it is more 
readily digestible. Not that any change has taken place 
within the loaf, but because, having no longer its gluten 



TRAINING. 109 

in a sticky condition, its crumb is more thoroughly mas- 
ticated. When bread is toasted there is actually less 
starch, because, through roasting the bread, an absolute 
change of elements takes place. Of course this alter- 
ation is only at the surface, but the bread inside is more 
thoroughly dried, and therefore more easily divided by 
the teeth. All doughy bread, or carelessly made bread, 
with cakes, buns, and pies, should be expunged from 
the dietary of the man in training. 

Fatty substances mixed with flour prevent rapid di- 
gestion. Whatever the man who is at work eats, he 
eats for a purpose. Whatever takes away from his vital 
force must be discarded. The principle ever to be re- 
membered is that such food is the best for the man which 
gives him bone and muscle, and the power necessary to 
work it off with the least trouble. It is obvious that in 
selecting the ordinary farinaceous foods of civilization, 
the man in training would not stuff himself with rice- 
pudding, for the simple reason that starch in rice repre- 
sents not less than eighty-eight per cent., while in wheat 
it is only fifty-seven. It is not always safe, however, to 
rely implicitly on percentages. Individual powers of 
digestion or assimilation act differently. I notice that 
a crack English trainer gives oatmeal gruel. I can find 
no possible fault with the build or courage of those who 
eat oatmeal. If oatmeal be that foundation on which a 
Scotchman builds, all I have to say is, that he has found an 
uncommonly good material. The richness of phosphate 
oatmeal contains, the potentiality it possesses as a bone- 



no TRAINING. 

maker, makes me rather incline to its use. I regret, 
then, never having tried it. I would not use it in quan- 
tity, but give it to men who crave additional food at 
their last meal. 

There is something about preparing various kinds of 
farinaceous foods which should be borne in mind, and 
it is, that for certain purposes, the continuous cooking 
of them really improves their nutrient qualities. When 
they are thoroughly cooked or heated over, the starchy 
substances approach nearer to conversion into sugar, 
and the processes of digestion become both easier and 
shorter. In fact, the repeated cooking of farinaceous or 
starchy compounds, acts as if a digestive process were 
carried on outside of the human economy. This is the 
reason why toasted bread is recommended as a diet in- 
stead of bread as it has left the oven. 

Potatoes I do not deem to be good food for those in 
training. Twenty per cent, of starch is not a great deal, 
but the potato makes fat very easily — too easily, in fact. 
With this exception, all other vegetables can be eaten. 
I even advocate their use. To make a discrimination 
between a cabbage and a green pea seems to be an act 
of hyper-criticism. Green peas, beans, or such legumes 
contain very much more farinaceous matter than pars- 
nips or beets, butthequantity of common vegetable food 
a man under heavy exercise in training craves for is 
never large, and his wants in this direction should be 
satisfied. Oxford and Cambridge both give vegetables 
as a part of the day*s fare, and salads are introduced for 



TRAINING, 1 1 1 

supper. I would rather give a little salad with the mid- 
day meal. I advise particularly the use of a well-boiled 
onion at times. As a mild natural purgative there is 
nothing better. It may be noticed in studying former 
English training bills of fare that fruits are never men- 
tioned. The nearest approach is " a gruel with raisins and 
currants/*given, if required, at a supper ; but this supper 
is not recommended. I use fruits when in season and out 
of season. Stewed apples or stewed peaches are better 
than prunes. If ripe fruit is to be had, I give^it in 
certain quantity. I am positive if fruit be used in 
moderation, there is general improvement of the system. 
I do not think that for a man hard at his work anything 
tastes more delightfully than the half of an apple, or a 
ripe peach. I have always considered that the cravings 
of nature were not to be overlooked. It is a call for 
exactly what was wanted. 

I see no harm in using good poultry at times, but not 
too frequently. At the commencement of the period of 
training, when I have noticed a man not take his beef 
with the zest he should, I have started his hunger with 
poultry, but have never continued it. Certainly a man 
could not train on a breast of chicken. 

I am a fair, but not a large, meat-eater, excepting 
when I have been under training. In my experiences,- 
I was once in a situation where for three weeks the 
only meat I could eat was such as was covered with 
feathers. There was plenty of flying game, but no deer. 
I lived then on the game I shot, and I had hard work to 



112 TRAINING. 

get enough of it. I must confess that considering the 
kind of food and the work I was doing, I fell off con- 
siderably in weight ; that I did not care for much, 
but I found that my general physical condition was 
running down. I tired more readily, and was losing 
energy. The diet did not suit me. On another occa- 
sion, there being no butcher-shops within a thousand 
miles, nor four-footed game to kill, I was forced to 
subsist on a purely vegetable and farinaceous diet — 
canned vegetables and fruits, with hard-tack. I had 
plenty of hard work, and I bore the fatigue well. My 
weight diminished rather more than it would have done 
under a meat diet, but I was always fresh, and the 
stimulant to work was never on the decrease. I am 
not, however, prepared to state that changes of form 
due to the presence or absence of certain kinds of food 
invariably follow. 

All stimulants, such as condiments, are to be shunned. 
The cook may dust the meat lightly with salt and 
pepper, but do not touch the castors, and do not use 
mustard. Condiments are incentives to poor appetites. 
If you are not hungry in a natural way, then you are not 
good for athletic exercises, and had better give them 
up. You neither want pickles, catsups, nor sauces. 
Hunger is that sauce which work should bring about. 
You certainly will be thirsty enough after your run or 
pull, and should never take anything which would tend 
to excite unnatural thirst. The use of sour compounds 
I have written about. In recommending salads, that 




From Harper'3 Young People. Copyright, 1888, by Harper & Brothers. 

W. C. DOHM, SPRINTING, 



TRAINING. 113 

comprehends the dressing, with a proper proportion of 
good oil, and as Httle vinegar as possible. 

There are little things which show the peculiar condi- 
tions of the man, and changes which take place in 
tastes. I have sometimes noticed that at the beginning 
of a period of serious training a man has shown at first 
a craving for salt. A careful coach who watches his 
men should overlook nothing. Is it to be supposed 
that I had the salt-cellar suppressed ? Not at all. The 
man had all the salt he wanted. In a few days his 
desire for salt in excess was gone. His system was cry- 
ing for a good dose of sodium, and he took it, and 
satiety came. I have heard a trainer say : 

" Mr. , excuse me, but you won*t grow good 

muscle, or make your wind sound by putting so much 
butter on your toast. I wish you would take your 
bread dry.*' 

*^ What if it chokes me ? ** was the query. 

I cannot, of course, enter into descriptions of the 
oesophagus of the butter-eater, but I suppose he really 
did suffer discomfort from eating " unlubricated '* dry 
toast. The trainer was one of the old school, who be- 
lieved in giving men just as little fluid as they could get 
along with. Butter or no butter, the crews that man 
trained won many races. 

As to tobacco there is but one rule, and that is im- 
perative. Stop it entirely. Neither smoke nor chew. 
Tobacco may be a sedative or a stimulant, according to 
the quantity used. It cannot be denied that it has some 



1 14 TRAINING. 

action on the nervous system. The work you are doing 
should act as your sedative and stimulant. I think that 
with men of twenty who are smokers, who give up their 
tobacco, there is a hard struggle, and that it is accom- 
panied at first by real discomfort. I do not believe in 
half ways of doing things. The instant a man makes up 
his mind to go into training, let him present his cigars and 
cigarettes to his friends. " Thou shalt not smoke, nor 
shalt thou chew,'* is written as one of the laws on the 
trainer's tablets. 

Aside from the many advantages derivable from ath- 
letic exercise, I know of none more marked than the 
benefits obtained from a smokeless life. I have seen 
the habit of smoking permanently broken in young men 
who have gone into training. They never seemed to 
care for tobacco afterward. As for the bad effects of 
permitting smoking in your gymnasiums, I need not 
describe them. Pupils may not smoke any more than 
visitors. 

I cannot help feeling amused when I read what was 
an old habit invariably carried out when a man went 
into training. The best thing that antiquated coach 
did was to look wondrous wise, and to prescribe some 
bitter dose or other, or a brace of pills. No matter 
what was the condition of the man a purge was a neces- 
sity. Some very good men of former times used to 
take their regulating medicine every day, and keep on 
at their work just the same, and rise triumphant above 
their double depletion. It really was as if a man were 



TRAINING. 115 

to take every day an ounce of blood out of his circula- 
tion. This custom is of unknown antiquity. To "rad- 
ically cleanse a man/* as an old authority has it, was to 
prepare him for perfection. You could do it with tartar 
emetic or ipecac, and wash it down with senna tea or 
Glauber's salts. As often as not the trainer had some 
potent abomination of his own with which he literally 
dosed his man. Lately I read in some self-constituted 
authority on training, that a purge was beneficial '^ at 
the beginning." Then it went on to say : *^ It cannot 
be denied in opposition to the professors, that drugs 
hasten the man. It does not take so long to get him 
into condition.*' A vast amount of concentrated igno- 
rance is displayed just here. Everybody knows, or ought 
to know, that there is a limit to the " hastening of the 
man as to condition,** and that training is just one of 
those things where to be precipitate is to spoil a man. 
Nothing I could write could be better expressed than 
what Mr. Maclaren says : " I should advise men in train- 
ing to leave all drugs alone. If unwell let them go to 
the doctor in whom they have faith and take what he 
recommends, and take nothing which he does not. 
There is no crudity either in bowel or brain so danger- 
ous as this notion of amateur physicking.** 

Those who have read so far of the practice and theory 
combined relating to training, must be conscious that 
for the proper understanding of the subject knowledge 
both of a general and special character is necessary. To 
appreciate the reasons for the doing of the many things 



Il6 TRAINING. 

which make a man perfect in his body, physiological 
conditions must be studied ; but a trainer who arrogates 
to himself the skill of the doctor or of the surgeon is a 
conceited idiot. Show me a trainer who gives a purge 
in order to prepare a man for athletic work, and I put 
him down as an ass, and a dangerous one at that. If I 
employ the most condemnatory language I can think of 
in regard ^to physicking a man, I can hardly find terms 
strong enough to express my horror in regard to blood- 
letting. I do not believe phlebotomy ever is in use 
to-day, and I hope it never will be. 

Not so long ago Russian and Turkish baths were oc- 
casionally prescribed to reduce a man. That they are 
debilitating in their effects, is positive. I know of a 
man, the most promising of oarsmen, who had worked 
through one season, and overtures were made to put 
him in the college crew. Somehow there came a period of 
enforced idleness, and he waxed fat. Returning to his col- 
lege and resuming his oar, he found that his corpulence 
did not decrease with work. Becoming impatient, and in 
opposition to the advice of his coxswain, who was a cap- 
ital coach, the young gentleman went through a whole 
series of Turkish baths, and at once lost weight and was 
delighted. Taking to his oar again, he found a certain 
loss of vigor. He felt lassitude following what was 
really moderate exertion, and his annoyance was ex- 
treme. The sequel of this experimenting with Turkish 
baths ought to have been that the man lost his place in 
the crew. I am pleased to say he did not. He did less 



TRAINING. 117 

work, husbanded himself, and slowly his powers were re- 
stored. He eventually found his place among the cham- 
pions. This is what he told me : 

** I only had eight of those Turkish baths, and they 
nearly used me up. I got better of them, only it took 
me not less than thirty days to get over their effects, and 
instead of being in good condition in sixty days, it was 
quite three months before I was all right. Now, here is 
something which I make no secret of : We won. Maybe 
I did my share in winning ; at least, I tried to ; but when 
we finished, I was the worst used-up man in the crew, 
and it took me longer than it did any of them to get all 
right again.*' 

As the late Professor Proctor explains it, Turkish 
baths may diminish weight, but only for a short time, 
and, in a day or so, bulk returns. The substances your 
system has lost are at once taken up again. I doubt 
very much whether you have removed any of your extra 
fat. I maintain that any artificial process which tries to 
bring about sudden changes is an ynnatural one, and as 
pernicious as would be a purge. A pretty skin may be 
the resultant of the extraordinary methods of cleansing 
your system, but a pretty woman may have a pretty skin, 
and by no means gain strength thereby. Russian and 
Turkish baths, especially the latter, are admirably adapted 
for jockeys, but not for athletes. 

If I were asked what I deemed of the greatest import- 
ance in training, after good food and good air, I should 
say that it was the possessing a clean skin. The plenti- 



Il8 TRAINING. 

ful use of water acts in more than one way. It is not 
alone a tonic, but it is of vital assistance, inasmuch as it 
frees the body of substances not to be gotten rid of in 
any other way. The body, as we know, is punctured 
with millions of small orifices through which the per- 
spiration passes. We perspire not only in order to cool 
the system, but so as to have drip from us those sub- 
stances formed during exercise. Nature finds it easier 
to do this through our pores than in any other way. 

To have the pores clogged is to put stoppers into 
some of these six or seven millions of the natural chan- 
nels of discharge. The analysis of this perspiration 
shows that it is water holding in solution the chlorides, 
sulphates, and carbonates of sodium, and carrying with 
it mechanically a certain oily matter. Except in the 
very coldest weather, the body is always giving off 
moisture, and this condition is known as insensible 
transpiration. With a normal skin, say of ninety-eight 
degrees, we can see how necessary perspiration is. We 
are then always evaporating in order to get, not alone 
cooler, but to clear ourselves of the excess of salts we 
are making within us. In strong and violent exercise, it 
is probable that we give off as much as six thousand 
grains of perspiration in an hour. If it were continued 
long at this rate, we should almost desiccate ourselves, 
and exhaustion would be sure to follow. 

In a physiological sense, the treatise has yet to be 
written which will show the relationship between per- 
spiration and amount of work done. This we know, 



TRAINING. 119 

however, that in normal temperatures, the man accus- 
tomed to work will sweat less than the soft man. If un- 
der usual circumstances a man gives off in a day and a 
night two pounds of perspiration, and under hard work 
gives off very much more, it can be seen how vital it is 
to have a clean skin. Nicety of person is, then, a law of 
nature conducive to health, and this cleanliness is only 
obtainable by bathing. If the salts carried from the in- 
side to the outside of a man were not alone objection- 
able, in addition to these are the glandular exudations, 
which are positively offensive. Their adhesion to the 
skin is more persistent than the saline productions. We 
bathe, then, for that improved tone the body must re- 
ceive and to get the skin in its primest condition, so 
that its constant and delicate work should be best per- 
formed. Some subtle theorist startled the world long 
ago by insisting that the civilization of a country de- 
pended on the soap it used. The question of having a 
clean body includes, then, the use of soap and plenty of 
it, not alone for mankind in general, but especially for 
those who are in training. As Maclaren has it, in writ- 
ing about hot or cold water for bathing, if you use the 
latter, your cleansing abilities are lessened, though you 
have the tonic. If you use the cold water, you have 
"the brace/' but no detersive effects, for no washer- 
woman ever did use cold suds. 

When you bathe, have the water below the outside 
temperatures ; for a hale man in good exercise the ef- 
fects are capital. It is exercise in its mildest form. The 



120 TRAINING. 

blood works all over the surface because it is mechani- 
cally compressed. Absolute shrinkage of muscles and 
veins takes place. Then the heart throbs a trifle more 
strongly, and the flow of blood surging outwardly re- 
sumes its force. This is pleasant stimulation. 

There can never be fully described what a marvellous 
creation is the human cuticle. It is not the thermome- 
ter alone of our system, but its barometer. It tells at 
once the least increase or decrease of temperature or 
pressures. I am quite sure that it is to Maclaren that 
the credit is due of making the two distinctions between 
water to be used as a tonic and as an astringent. 

When I am putting a man at his work, I incline at 
first to the use of the cold sponge-bath, rather than of 
the douche or plunge. Watching the pupil's condition, 
if I have commenced with water at a temperature not 
more than four degrees above normal outside tempera- 
tures (in summer), I rarely have used it lower than two 
degrees below. I know of no other rule than that a 
man should take a sponge bath or a cold bath every 
day. 

I differ from some who advocate the using of the 
tepid bath every other day. Once a week is plenty, and 
then not for more than three minutes. It is on such oc- 
casions that soap is used. I see no reason why, with the 
hard rubbing a man gets from a daily cold bath, he 
should not be clean all the time. For the cold bath, 
there is, then, no time like that which comes early in 
the morning just after a man is out of bed. If after 



TRAINING. 121 

that he has been at work and he takes a cold bath, I dif- 
fer from many respected authorities in advising an inter- 
val of nearly twenty minutes. Unless my man is very 
much used up, I have him walk about a little before let- 
ting him take his cold bath. It is not a cooling-down 
process, for a cooling-down process induces a shock, and 
is rather dangerous. For the tepid bath just before 
turning in after the day*s work is over, this is a good 
time for it. It acts as a soporific. If I find a man is 
just right I diminish his bathing. 

In all cases, vigorous rubbing should follow the use of 
water. A bath attendant who knows something about 
massage is invaluable in a gymnasium, for how to rub a 
man or a horse down is an art. It is not the cuticle 
alone that is benefited, for the salutary effects of rubbing 
down are shared by the whole body. It is exercise given 
the man at somebody else*s expense. You gain some- 
thing of the vital force another man is parting with. 

I never would give a tepid bath with a temperature 
over eighty degrees. I am not certain as to the advan- 
tage of two cold baths per diem as a constancy. In our 
hot American weather, I hardly see, however, how any 
work could be done without two baths in summer. In 
fall and winter I should rather incline to give the cold 
sponge but once a day. If my man is over thirty-five, I 
never permit it, winter or summer, more than once a day. 
This question of two cold baths per diem is one into 
which the personal equation enters. Strong men do 
better with their two cold baths than with one, and yet 



122 TRAINING. 

when least expected, I have seen it productive of harm. 
A bath being in a measure a private performance, I have 
sometimes thought that, for want of supervision, men in 
training have been careless as to the temperature of their 
water, or have indulged in too much of its tonic. An 
occasional ^' blue look '' on the part of a pupil, I never 
could account for in any other way than the transgres- 
sion of some very common-sense rules. 

It need not be insisted upon that the very worst thing 
that anybody can do in want of training is to bathe after 
a meal. Before eating is the time, or as late as possible 
after it. Nature behaves in the same way at all times. 
While engaged in doing one kind of work, she refuses to 
be called off suddenly to do another, and that is why we 
should neither eat, nor drink, nor bathe immediately af- 
ter exercising. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

AIR— VENTILATION. 

Where man differs from a machine — The want of pure air — Man 
when he sleeps — Recuperative action — Growth probably 
takes place during sleep — Automatic forces — Want of care in 
securing proper ventilation — The man's vitiated breath — 
Feeding on his own smoke — Keeping what we ought to get 
rid of — How to kill a man — Experiment with a dog — Action 
of lung, kidney, and intestines — Human miasma — The sleep- 
ing-room — Parkes' rule — Windows must be open — Have access 
to the outside air — Stuffy English rooms. 

There is interdependence in the functions of the 
human organism. Nature has adaptiveness. She is 
subtle in her makeshifts. She rigs as it were jury-masts 
on a man and gets him somehow or other into port. It 
is obvious, however, that the best man is the one who has 
provided for him the best selected materials which with- 
stand all storms. 

I do not think the favorite and somewhat threadbare 

simile of the furnace and the coals, and the brass and 

steel mechanism holds quite good as to air. Air 

rather increases the combustion of my coals, if I put on 

a hot blast, and I may help my heat by the introduction 

and burning of certain gases. When a man is at work he 

wants one thing, pure, unadulterated and in plenty, and 

that is air. If air were consumed by him when he was 

only at work, he might select it. If a gymnasium were 

(123) 



124 TRAINING. 

crowded and the air vitiated, he could take to the open. 
He might then choose his kind of air. But the work of 
respiration goes on when he is not awake. He uses air 
when he sleeps. He wants it good then, quite as much 
as when he is at work. Vital combustion goes on then 
forever and ever, — never ceases until the spark of life is 
extinguished. 

When we sleep, recuperative forces are in action, not 
as violent as when we are at work, but still with exceed- 
ing power. How much conversion of food into muscle 
takes place during sleep we do not know. It would 
seem natural, however, to suppose that many of the 
most important modifications occur during sleep, and 
this has been gravely advanced, that growth of the body 
in length and bulk, is more likely to occur during the 
sleep of the individual than when he is awake. Anthro- 
pometry, or the science of accurate human measurements, 
may present some day this fact more clearly. Sleep 
then is apparently rest to us, but absolutely as far as our 
bodies are concerned, this is not the case. The food 
taken digests in sleep more slowly but more surely. 
Automatic forces, none the less potent because un- 
appreciated, are at work. Here then is the body of the 
man who sleeps. He has exercised freely. His food 
and drink have been properly selected and in sufficient 
quantity. So far we have done all we can for him, and 
we leave him. Ought we to trust to luck for that other 
most vital element, the quality of the air he is to breathe 
for the next seven or eight hours ? 



TRAINING. 125 

If we are careless about that, we are as it were filling 
him with vital force through two-thirds of his day, and 
taking it away from him in the last third of his twenty- 
four hours, and just when he could least afford to lose 
it. He may be doing the worst thing at the most inop- 
portune time. 

Do we not know that the man as he sleeps, is giving 
off in his breath the internal combustion of himself ? We 
are as it were accumulating poison, and for lack of 
thought as to ventilation, making this unfortunate 
creature breathe over and over the exhalations of his 
own body. We feed him with his own smoke. Here is 
your horrible mixture of carbonic gas, of sulphureted 
hydrogen, some of the decompositions of water in the 
air of the room. It is the waste products we are trying 
to treasure up. Nature has been doing her best to get 
rid of them, and we are bent on keeping them. 

I can kill a man by means of introducing carbonic 
acid into his room while he sleeps. Men who work at 
the bottom of wells, perish that way. The breath with 
its watery vapor carries this gas out of the man, but in 
addition to this, there is a special nitrogenous substance 
known as sudoric acid, which is found in perspiration. 
The constant evaporation known as '* insensible trans- 
piration '' is taking place. As to the many products of 
cutaneous excretion the greatest authority of to-day 
says, their poisonous power is well established. " We 
have no names for them, but we know they are deadly 
because they kill when not eliminated.'* 



126 TRAINING. 

Whether the story of the poor child, who, coated with 
gold-leaf, died because his skin could no longer give off 
its secretions, be true or not I do not know, but this ex- 
periment was made by a physiologist on a dog. The ani- 
mal was closely shaved, then varnished with collodion. 
Within the creature, all the secretions, aqueous or vapor- 
ous, were sealed up. In eight hours the dog died. 

We have the intestines, the kidneys, the lungs, and 
the skin all functioning. We cannot overlook one of 
them. The worst accidents arise by the repressing of 
any one of these functions. Take the two functions of 
the lungs and the skin. By exercise we have brought 
these in the man under training to the highest degree of 
efficiency. As he sleeps he is working at his best with 
lungs and skin, and we are poisoning him by the preser- 
vation of his own exhalations. Brown-S6quard shows 
that the human breath '' contained a most active poison, 
an alkaloid capable of killing in two hours an animal in- 
to which it was injected.*' Human miasma is something 
then to be dreaded. 

The sleeping-room of the man who is in training must 
have free access to the open air. I do not care to give 
too much space to the exact quantity of free air neces- 
sary for a room. Parkes, who is the soundest of 
authorities, makes this general statement, that natural 
ventilation would be such possibilities of air in a room 
for one person, as would allow all the air to be renewed 
in it four times during the hour. This change of air 
would depend, however, on many accidental causes. 



TRAINING. 127 

Men who are at work should sleep with windows 
open. In our summer climate, to sleep with closed win- 
dows is impossible. But do not close the window in 
winter. In our badly constructed houses, where the 
waste products coming from defective drainage permeate 
them, an open bed-room door does little good. It may- 
dilute the poison and nothing more. The man in train- 
ing must learn to sleep in winter with an open window. 
I do not mean a foot of open window, but certainly a 
half inch. A healthy man well covered does not feel 
cold when he sleeps. This question of ventilation has a 
local treatment in the United States. On the Continent, 
especially in the cities, death is supposed to follow a 
sleeper who has a window open. The wretched sewer- 
age of the past was possibly dangerous in its effects on 
sleepers. 

In England, an American going among boating men 
attached to the universities, told me of his amazement 
at "the stuffiness'' of the chambers in which men under 
training slept. Expostulating with these young gentle- 
men as to the miasmatic atmosphere, the reply was: 
'* Oh see here now, open windows would not do here at 
all. We would get awful colds and a generally nasty 
feeling. Ours is a damper climate than yours, and what 
would not hurt a Yankee would kill a Britisher.'* 



CHAPTER XIV. 

SLEEP. 

Advantages of regular hours— Time of going to bed and getting 
up — The hours a man may sleep — Eight hours none too 
many — The dangers of insomnia — Precautions to be taken — 
Early rising — Sleep during the day — Drowsiness— Shocking 
a pupil — Over-mental stimulation — Necessity of watchfulness 
on the part of trainers — Dawdling in sleeping-rooms — The 
tonic of waking. 

Little need be said in regard to the advantage of 
sleep for the man under training. There are only two 
points of advice to be given. One is, that there must 
be regularity in the hours of going to bed and of getting 
up. Active training being generally carried on during 
the more pleasant season of the year, turning out early 
in the morning brings no physical discomfort. The man 
at work ought to be in bed at half-past nine and sound 
asleep in the next five minutes. He should be up and 
awake at half-past five o'clock. He would then have 
had about eight hours sleep. 

I have never yet seen any sensible book which insisted 
on the serious curtailment of eight hours of sleep. 
Sometimes a sleep of seven hours has been recommended 
as bringing about a better condition. I doubt very 
much if any good reasons could be given for exactly 
seven hours, and representing them as the limit of a 

(128) 



TRAINING. 129 

natural rest. I should not be uneasy if a man in train- 
ing continued over nine hours. If at the very beginning 
of work, a man under my charge wanted to sleep his nine 
hours, I have not awakened him for the week or so, but 
after that I have thought it wiser to bring him down to 
a sleep not exceeding eight hours. I have supposed, 
and I believe correctly, that in this case Nature was 
only asserting her claims on growing men, for men who 
grow want their full eight hours. 

Giving to physical expenditure its fullest value, I am 
somewhat of the opinion that for the depletion of the 
system it is not any more severe than mental work. 
Men who labor hard with their brains ought never to 
take less than seven or eight hours of sleep. The surest 
sign of a mental break-up is when insomnia comes. The 
duration of sleep alters with the age of the individual, 
with his idiosyncrasies, and even with his surroundings. 
A man sleeps badly because he may be too warm or too 
cold, or his digestion is imperfect, or he has been men- 
tally disturbed. Precautions should then be taken, that, 
as far as bed-clothes are concerned, these coverings are 
increased or lessened according to temperatures. 

Generally a man, who is rising in the scale of physical 
conditions, " sleeps like a top,** indifferent to his sur- 
roundings. A well-tired soldier snores on, and a cannon- 
shot does not awaken him. Differing in toto then from 
some excellent authorities, I do not think six hours 
enough, and I have encouraged a full eight hours* sleep. 
I have always laid great stress on the time of going to 



I30 TRAINING. 

bed, and think that when a man is up beyond lO P.M., 
every minute after that is the worse for him. 

I want him to be up and out when the air is freshest 
and purest. We have given up the ozone fads, but 
there is no question that the early morning air is full 
of vital force. Between 6 and 7 a.m., that one hour 
helps the man more than any other sixty minutes in the 
whole day. The human coil which has been spent the 
day before, has now recovered its temper. It is, as it 
were, imbued with subtle power, and more than at any 
other time it is ready to take its spring. 

Sleeping during the day, the siesta, I have never fa- 
vored. When I have seen an athletic pupil heavy and 
drowsy during the hours when the sun shines, I have con- 
sidered this as indicative not of some physical defect, but 
that the work has been for a moment beyond his powers. 
In such cases I have diminished the tasks. I have found 
it of advantage to lengthen out the night's rest by 
as much as an hour. I have had men under training 
who began with the occasional drowsiness, but who got 
gradually over it under judicious management, and 
ended by becoming thoroughly proficient. When a 
man is in his highest physical condition, he never is 
sleepy save at regular hours. Above all, it is exactness 
as to time of doing everything — eating, working, bathing, 
sleeping — that makes the man. 

I should impress this point on men who do the 
training, and it is, never to shock a pupil. Say a man 
is dull. To shake him up roughly is a mistake. As 



TRAINING. 131 

well send an electric discharge through him. You do 
him more harm than good. The worst conception of 
your business is to expect of Nature more than it can 
perform. 

Sleeplessness may occur during the middle of train- 
ing. I look at this as the graver of the two condi- 
tions. Studying it carefully, this phase is evidently due 
to over-mental excitability. The brain stimulation has 
been carried on to excess. The head has worked more 
than it should, and refuses to diminish its activity. 
When this happens there must be instantaneous stop- 
page from work ; I do not mean diminishing, but arrest- 
ing exercise. The man must do nothing for twenty- 
four hours at least. If work is resumed, it must then 
be gradual. 

There is no use in trying to do anything with a man 
who does not sleep his full time. It is even dangerous. 
The cure may come by dint of time and patience ; but 
as far as concerns such a man taking a leading place in 
athletic performances, it is impossible. He might as 
well not eat. The breakdown is certain. If after a 
warning of this kind an accident happens, it is not the 
fault of the man at his work, but his trainer. 

No major or minor incident should escape the train- 
er's notice. He is bound to ask his pupil many ques- 
tions, and on his part the pupil should be as open, frank, 
and responsive as possible. Little things, which the 
man in training would not think of any importance, 
may become serious impediments, and prevent him from 



1 32 TRAINING. 

occupying the place he might occupy. It is a trainer's 
business to acquaint himself with all these details. If 
he understands his business he may arrest the progress 
of physical faults, and more than that, cure them. 

I despise dawdling in a sleeping-room. When a man 
after a sound sleep opens his eyes, he should try to get 
himself at once awake. 

I think the highest proof of a sound mental condition 
is when a man rises, and in the next five minutes re- 
members all that he has done the day before, all that 
he intends to do during the coming hours. I cannot 
describe the superb feeling of a man who, with his fine 
muscular development, awakens like a young giant re- 
freshed from his slumbers. It is the acme of physical 
enjoyment. Life and strength stimulate every muscle. 
It is the rapid transition from sleeping to waking, which 
is the best of tonics. The man has forgotten all about 
the toil of yesterday, and only thinks of the accomplish- 
ment of his labors for to-day. 



CHAPTER XV. 

CLOTHING. 

Bed coverings — Dress — Flimsy theories — Clothes never made an 
athlete — Use of white — The shirt — The drawers — The proper 
fit— The cut— Worsted hose and socks— Shoes— -When races 
are to be run with bare feet — Indian races — Soles of shoes- 
Leather or rubber? — Oil or vaseline for shoes — Overcoats 
and wraps — In the dressing-room —Belts and buckles. 

If the furnishing of beds is to be included under the 
head of clothing, no over-quantity of bed clothing is to 
be recommended. Any Spartan rules in regard to this 
would be silly. The active season in this country for 
athletics being spring and summer, a man may do just 
as he pleases as to bed coverings, suiting his own incli- 
nations. 

As to dress, there is little to be said about it. There 
have been theories of astounding flimsiness built up 
in regard to a man's getting strong by only wearing 
woolen garments. It would be just as reasonable to say : 
** He became an athlete because he sported a certain 
kind of jumper.'* Any material that will absorb perspi- 
ration rapidly, and can be easily washed and will not 
shrink, does well enough, providing the stuff does not 
chafe. I have no fancy for materials which are colored. 
White is the best. It does not absorb nor retain the 
heat. If it gets dirty sooner than colored material, then 

(133) 



134 TRAINING. 

it necessitates cleansing more frequently, which puri- 
fication helps the man who wears the garment. The 
shirt I like best is sleeveless. Tight-fitting things are 
good for circuses, and nothing else. Collar-bands should 
be loose, if collar-bands are used at all ; but a bare neck, 
with no impediments for the throat-muscles, is the best. 
I like a fairly loose, baggy cotton shirt, not made of 
closely-knit fabric. I want ventilation, and plenty of it, 
while I am at work. Drawers or trousers should have 
broad bands that hold to the form, rather because their 
surface covers the waist, and by contact prevents their 
slipping. I think drawers for sprinters should extend 
somewhat below the knee. If there happens to be a 
slip and fall, there is less loss of cuticle. For hurdlers 
I believe in long drawers, because they leave the knee 
free, and keep out splinters which may be taken from 
the wooden bars. 

I am a strong advocate for worsted hose and socks. 
I think they induce sound feet, and prevent abrasions 
and bruises ; but I am of the opinion that the best time 
is made on the cinder track by those who wear no socks 
at all. The foot must become indurated. A shoe is 
bad enough as an impediment, and perhaps some day 
or other the barefooted ones will knock off a second in 
sprinting. I know that human hands never could play 
a violin or piano with gloves on as well as without them. 
This barefoot idea is not original to me. It has been 
mooted before. I have seen Indians race, and though 
their moccasins were thin enough, they generally threw 



TRAINING. 13s 

them away before running. I have noticed, ho'vi^eyer, 
that the tracks they ran over were fairly smooth ones. 
I cannot state that there had been a Shoshone track- 
layer and supervisor, but it looked as if some prior care 
had been given to the grounds. 

It might take a very long time for a man to indurate 
his feet for this kind of work, but I am led to believe 
that if he did succeed in doing that he would gain some- 
thing. Those flexor muscles of the toes, and that grand 
muscle that covers the sole of the foot, might do better 
work unhampered. I need not expatiate further on 
this subject, because we run shod, as do our horses. 

I am conservative enough to like a thin-soled leather 
shoe better than a rubber-soled one. I am told that 
rubber soles prevent slipping. My reply is, that a man 
who knows how to run ought not to slip. A man who 
is perspiring freely, the sweat pouring down his legs, is 
sometimes hampered by actually running in the water 
his rubber shoes hold. I want a man who is a runner 
to have never less than three pairs of shoes, all precisely 
alike, and of the same weight. While at work, use two 
pairs pretty regularly, changing these two pairs daily; 
the third pair put on only semi-occasionally. When 
this last pair are perfectly conformed to the foot — 
broken-in — they are to be put aside. Have this reserve 
pair of shoes given, soles and uppers, a good rubbing with 
vaseline, which as a preservative of leather, during short 
intervals, I think better than grease. The soles of this 
pair of shoes held in reserve must not be worn in any 



136 TRAINING. 

one place more than another, but ought to be per- 
fectly flat. If spiked, the prods must be well looked to. 
For rapid work, as in sprinting, all precautions should 
be taken as to rig. For other work this extreme care is 
hardly so important. I have a great distaste for all 
kinds of jaunty apparel and fancy costumes. The man 
at work looks best who has on the plainest and simplest 
of get-ups. 

If in the open air, a fairly warm garment, an old fall 
overcoat — something loose to throw over yourself — is a 
necessity. You ought to be, in a measure, indurated to 
changes of temperature, but after having become red-hot 
through heavy work, when you come to a standstill, your 
task having been accomplished, the wind may have 
veered from south to north and the temperatures low- 
ered. As there are chances of catching cold, or your 
stiffening through sudden or long-continued exposures, 
an additional wrap is a necessity. 

I may add, when your work is over never dawdle. 
Move around briskly. You will recover yourself event- 
ually better that way than by coming to a dead halt. 
Make haste to the dressing-room. Do not sit down 
there. To cool down properly, if you are warm, is to 
take time in the cooling down. If you take your bath 
and sponging off, do not forget the clothes you were 
working in. Give them the chance of becoming re- 
freshed too by airing, and better than that, washing. A 
man at work, to be comfortable, should have not less 
than three complete sets of clothes. You will feel bet- 



TRAINING. 137 

ter from the change, and the chances of having a clean 
skin are improved. 

The less I say about a belt the better. They are 
fashionable and of all colors. Intended to keep up the 
drawers, if broad and very supple, holding up the nether 
garment by breadth of surface, they may do no harm, if 
they do no good. A buckle no one should ever stom- 
ach even for little spurty work, where no great exertions 
are required. In lawn-tennis belts and buckles are nice, 
but for serious labor where the least impediment galls, 
chafes, and checks muscular work and impairs circula- 
tion, the true athlete despises them. 

I have known men of late (in the fashion) who work 
and do good work, too, with broad scarfs around their 
loins. These sashes, made of silk, the wearers have 
thought helped them. I believe them to be useless. 
The set of a man*s hips, if he is well-built, should, with 
properly cut clothes, keep his trousers or drawers on 
him without any of these fanciful adjuncts. Head cov- 
erings are superfluities when exercising, at least when 
the sun is not shining. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

WORK. 

No royal road to perfection in athletics — " Samsons in five 
minutes" — Running in a groove — Disadvantages of any sys- 
tem — Apparatus — The true athlete not subject to either ma- 
chinist or carpenter — What apparatus has done for us — The 
sulky and the bicycle — The home gymnasium — Dumb-bells 
and clubs — Foreign systems — The paver's rammer — Milo — 
Machines which measure strength — General exercise — The 
grading of exercise — The three distinctions— Quantity of 
work — Difficult exercises — The trapeze and the Germans — 
Gentle, moderate, violent exercises — The gymnasium the 
place to create and store strength — Parallel bar — The oars- 
man — Proctor — Where an oarsman is at fault — The runner 
— How can a man acquire speed— The jumper — Improve- 
ment of a single muscle impossible — Tendency to work too 
much in one direction — Discrimination — The stout and the 
thin lad — " The go-as-you-please " class in a gymnasium 
comes to nothing — Production of better types through exer- 
cise — Measurements taken in military gymnasiums — Wom- 
en who exercise — Dr. Sargent — Gradual introduction of pu- 
pils to their work — The medicine-bag— Exercises of grip — 
Springboards — Where the Germans surpass us. 

I NOW approach what is the pith and marrow of the 
whole subject of physical exercise. As it may be seen, 
to get into the finest condition and to keep to that con- 
dition, there are many considerations as. vital as are the 
exercises of the gymnasium or the track. Hours might 

be spent in the gymnasium by an under-fed man or a 

(138) 



TRAINING. 139 

sleepless one, and instead of getting strength, he would 
but weaken himself. All such helps as nature or art 
can give being thrown into the balance, the normal man 
who exercises must rise in the scale of bodily vigor. 

At the very beginning I want to say, that like in any- 
thing else, there can be no royal road to perfection in 
athletic performance. You can get strong in a much 
less time than you can get learned, but time is a neces- 
sity for both conditions. No man ever mastered a sci- 
ence by reading a single book, nor can a man be an 
athlete who works only on the parallel bars. 

I lose patience over such publications, which, though 
not exactly, entitled '" How to Rival Samson in Five 
Minutes,'' induce readers to believe, that by following 
out one single system, the best results can be arrived at 
in the briefest periods. Some of these works run in a 
single groove, and vaunt their one method as capable 
of accomplishing everything. Such books may do no 
harm, — all they bring about is disappointment. 

One peculiarity of a *' system '* is to expatiate over cer- 
tain apparatus, as if the improvement of physical condi- 
tions was a subject entirely under the control of the car- 
penter and the machinist. No one questions the fact that 
improved apparatus is of great importance. If in partak- 
ing of food we consume but a single aliment, the palate 
tires ; so in exercising, one apparatus induces weariness. 
If there are better performers to-day with the more rapid 
maturing of the man, it is not to be questioned that this 
arises in no small measure from improved apparatus. 



140 TRAINING. 

I am somewhat of the opinion that where speed is 
the object, better time has been obtained from excel- 
lence of track. The apparatus for work has made toil 
easier, and when the supreme effort comes, it is accom- 
plished under the most favorable circumstances. The 
trotting horse cuts down his record by a second less, 
not entirely from increase of speed, but because the 
builder of the sulky knows how to distribute the weight 
of the driver more evenly, and the axles on which the 
wheels run have more perfect bearings. Comparing the 
performances of the bicycle to-day with those of five 
years ago, the greater speed is due less to the men, 
and more to the machines and the tracks. It w^ould be 
a bold man who would prophesy that the limit of excel- 
lence has been reached, in any of these performances, 
where there is a mechanical adjunct. A man*s legs do 
not move as fast as his brain. 

Variety of apparatus is, then, one of the great ad- 
vances made in gymnastics. The point made here is 
that they are adapted to varying capacities ; some are 
for the untrained who begin, others for the trained who 
wish to perfect themselves. Their variety has, too, this 
advantage, that they call into play all the muscles of the 
man who exercises. If that important factor, the brain, 
which furnishes the stimulant, is not wearied, it has then 
better opportunities when there are calls of different 
kinds made upon it. I defy a man working with a sin- 
gle apparatus to be a good all-around man. The impos- 
sibility of such a thing is manifest. It is true that an 



TRAINING. 141 

arrangement which costs altogether $1.50 to be rigged 
up between the jambs of a door, will benefit the general 
health of those who use it. You may, too, if you please, 
discard all apparatus and move your arms, your legs in 
certain directions without any clubs, wands, or dumb- 
bells, and gain vigor. Sometimes this sole idea, how- 
ever, is pushed to a ridiculous length, and an elaborate 
argument has been presented to show how, by only ex- 
panding and contracting the chest in a prescribed way, 
and putting under control the muscles of the abdomen, 
the result will be in time the creation of a pocket Her- 
cules. Occasionally such stuff is carried to absurd lengths. 
There are "foreign systems,'' which lay down gravely 
the advantages of scratching your left ear with your 
right hand, and the right ear with your left, and the 
benefits are heralded of crooking your first and second 
finger when your legs are in a pecuHar position. 

You can no more educate yourself with a single book, 
than you can become athletic with but one or two, or 
even half a dozen movements. The trouble about the 
man who works but few tools is that his body assimilates 
itself in time to the tools. Suppose, for exercise, I were 
to advise a man to take a course of " paving'' and give 
him a paver's rammer. That is a fairly trying kind of 
work. Say I begin by giving him a rammer weighing 
but a few pounds and then gradually increase its weight. 
In time my man might improve, but he would become 
a lumbering creature with abnormal muscles developed 
in his back, and with round shoulders. Milo is said to 



142 TRAINING. 

have carried a calf on his back until it grew to be a 
four-year-old heifer. But that Greek could never have 
walked with head erect. 

In going into a gymnasium the greater variety of 
apparatus to be found there, the better will be the 
effects of such apparatus on the man who works with 
them. 

Machines for measuring the increase of the actual 
force of those who exercise, so that improvements can 
be strictly determined, are necessities. More than that, 
they are incentives to work. Anybody can say, ^* You 
look stronger,'' but here is a machine which is alone un- 
biased. It has no purposes to serve — does not flatter. 
It tells the actual truth with its levers and ratchets of 
steel. Certain mechanical appliances I may be partial 
to, and I cite some of them later on as being advantage- 
ous for special work. I am, however, treating of general 
exercise, and I repeat, that I have in view the produc- 
tion of the good all-around man, because from that ma- 
terial the specialist is made. Do what you may, there 
will always be some one who has in himself certain 
inclinations for particular kinds of work, which must 
exert their sway. 

Lagrange makes the proper distinctions when he pre- 
sents the three classifications of gentle, moderate, and 
violent exercises. You may begin with the first, reach 
the second without knowing it, and then arrive at the 
third stage, and may pass through in all three of these 
conditions and be barely able from your own conscious- 



TRAINING. 143 

ness to discriminate between them. Difficulties are not 
to be confounded with absolute fatigue. 

Certain simple movements may be made difficult be- 
cause of their accomplishment with a different class of 
muscles. The heavy man mounts the steps leading to a 
room without much trouble. If he were to go up the 
rungs of a ladder to accomplish the same thing, he 
would tire himself. He is doing with his arms the work 
of his legs. Here is the point to be brought out, that 
"quantity of work'' does not comprehend difficulty of 
work. There are many things done in a gymnasium 
which are rather the result of skill alone than due to 
strength. 

Referring to " the system," the trapeze brings out 
conspicuously what is referred to when a single appara- 
tus is vaunted, as the only one which should serve the 
purpose of the gymnast. The trapeze is the constant 
exercise of the Germans. It is good in its way when 
used in conjunction with other apparatus. To acquire 
proficiency on the trapeze is to bring into play the ut- 
most nicety of muscular work — in fact, all its elegancies. 
It needs more science than strength. How to overcome 
difficulties is a part of the general study of gymnastics, 
but not its exact end. A man may acquire all the details 
of execution and not be strong. I may be a graceful 
dancer and by no means strong. It is general strength 
we should seek in a gymnasium. 

What are we to do so as to determine what is mild, or 
moderate, or violent exercise? When treating of the 



144 TRAINING. 

respiratory organs the effect of quick or long-continued 
work on the lungs was cited. We ought to have a ready 
measure to sum up at once our capabilities. With La- 
grange, then, I would say, that when a man of average 
strength feels neither fatigue nor breathlessness, the 
exercise may be called gentle. When the exercise has 
caused local fatigue without inducing breathlessness, it 
will be '^ moderate. '* It should be called " violent '* 
when it is accompanied and followed by breathlessness. 

When the question of sheer strength is to be sought 
for, it is in the gymnasium where it can be best de- 
veloped. Such displays of strength call not a single set 
of muscles, but for the whole of them. To accomplish 
an exhibition of strength, an effort is necessary, and in 
this effort every part and portion of the man is at work. 
It may sometimes, however, be so exerted as to be 
barely perceptible to the looker-on, visible rather when 
the effort is over, for then the breathless period follows. 
It should be remembered, that any display of strength 
never can be long sustained. The disturbances following 
it are not, however, as lasting as those where there is 
real nervous disturbance, such as is brought about by 
running. The gymnasium, then, is the place for the 
creation and storage of strength, not local but general. 

Health is acquired by a gradual physical education. 
Human drill takes place there, not special but general. 
The parallel bars may impart their help to the arms and 
shoulders of the man who is to be the stroke-oar in the 
boat race to come, but the bars will not give him that 



TRAINING. 145 

power alone. The arm is one thing, the attachments 
another. There is the shoulder, the upper, the fore-arm, 
the wrist, the hand, each of which want their thorough 
education. As Mr. Proctor says, "rowing alone is an 
insufficient exercise for the arms,'' and so the bars alone 
are an insufficient exercise, if rowing be the objective 
point. A better arm is acquired by a steady six weeks' 
work with the clubs alone than a whole season's rowing 
will give. That this is palpable, even the most enthusi- 
astic of rowing men admit. Rowing tends to the 
development of the back, loins, and the legs, but the bi- 
ceps of the arm increases in no proportion to the heavy 
work done. From particular anthropometric measures, 
I question if the man of short stature who rows has the 
muscles on the top of the shoulder or the deltoids im- 
proved in the least. 

Let us take the man who wants to run. Any school- 
boy if asked, " What makes good running ? " would 
answer, *^ Why, legs." Though the work on the legs is 
apparently more constant than the arms, it is but rarely 
that legs are well developed. They may be shapely 
from inheritance, but they are not often " good working 
legs." There is this about legs. Being more in use than 
arms they are readier when provided with selected work 
to improve than are the arms. Nothing comes up more 
quickly from stiffness to suppleness than the knee-joint. 
The leg includes the upper thigh, the knee, the leg from 
the knee to the toes, but more than these are wanted 
for speed. 



146 TRAINING. 

To speed a man, a very thorough gymnastic exercise is 
necessary. The gymnasium is the preparatory school. I 
know of nothing which requires a more thorough de- 
velopment of the abdominal muscles, with those of the 
waist, than running. It is the combination of all things 
from spring-boards to clubs which brings about that 
proper condition. You never will do jumping unless you 
are prime from the waist upward. You may not have 
the great muscles of the hammer thrower, but you have 
fined them down until they will give you all their spring 
when you take the upward propulsion. 

In the jump, the crural or leg-muscles play their part, 
and are necessarily the more important, but ''that 
cautious crawl '' the champion tells about, means that 
when he straightens up every muscle of the back the 
whole spinal system throws in its power to help the 
spring. The thews, the muscles of the arms, help the 
lift. The jumper jumps all over. The earth is the ful- 
crum. The movement propagated at the point of con- 
tact with the toes, fires the whole train of muscles, and 
as a champion informs you, this general excellence has 
come from gymnastic work. It was general at first. It 
had to be. Afterward came local education. This 
treatise has been but half understood if the main fact 
has not been seized before this, that it is only the man 
generally good all around who can become the pre- 
eminent performer in a single direction. To repeat this, 
it is to be trusted, will make its impress all the stronger 
on the reader*s mind. 



TRAINING. 147 

I have studied such works for information as have 
presented the idea, how one kind of machine does im- 
prove a certain muscle. They read something like 
medical advertisements. ^* The diseases being named A, 
B, and C, these want for their cure the swallowing of the 
bottles marked X, Y, Z.'* There might have been some 
reason in these assorted prescriptions. I am sorry to 
say I never quite understood them. The muscles them- 
selves were all properly designated. There might have 
been some ambiguity as to their exact position, which 
differed as to the position the man took. They might 
have been not so much out of the way, only I refuse, as 
ought any sensible man, to put entire credence in in- 
structions I could not understand. 

There is a tendency in the gymnasium for certain 
pupils to keep too long at one special kind of exercise. 
It is not to be supposed that this kind of preference 
arises because some one kind of exercise is easier than 
another. On the contrary, I have noticed pupils who 
have seemingly at the outset set their minds on trying 
to do what was not only a fairly difficult exercise, but 
one of the violent order. Such work being unfitted for 
their abilities, I have checked them. I have not found 
fault with their ambition, rather praised it, but told them 
that the accomplishment of the task was in their future. 
All parallel bars, or all trapeze, or all ladder, or all rings, 
or too much spring-board or horse vaulting, or jumping, 
or too much of anything by a pupil is to be decried. A 
man who is in charge of a gymnasium ought to have the 



148 TRAINING. 

watchfulness of a schoolmaster, but at the same time he 
must use discrimination, particularly with younger 
pupils. Discrimination comes in right here. A short, 
chunky build of a boy may never do much on the spring- 
board, so you might think. He is ambitious and wants 
to feel the pleasure of launching himself in the air. It 
is possible that as he grows, he will vary not so much 
from his younger form. But I am not to be too certain 
about that. Let him jump and vault. You are helping 
him on the side in which he is naturally deficient. Stop 
him when he does too much of it. Incline him, how- 
ever, to the greater suppling of himself. If his happi- 
ness is in the spring-board business, let him do his 
proportion of work with it. The tall, weedy boy may 
turn out to be the runner and sprinter of the future. 
What I want is to give him just that particular natural 
development the chunky lad has in excess. They may 
take to the same spring-board as ducks to water. They 
improve in that direction at once. They alter from 
their hips downward, but remain fixed in their upper 
measurements. I require those lads then to do less of 
jumping and vaulting, which are the easier things, and to 
work on parallel bars, and with all such apparatus which 
will develop them from the waist up. The natural bent 
of the chunky lad when he becomes the well-trained 
adolescent, may be to become a walker or a weight 
thrower, or one of the crew of a boat. There are many 
other things he might do and do well. The slimmer lad 
will make the jumper, hurdler, sprinter, but his success 



TRAINING. 149 

in the future will be due — not to his having done this or 
that particular thing in the gymnasium, but to the fact 
that he has been under the eye of an intelligent master, 
who has made him do all things. 

The "go-as-you-please" or " do-as-you-please *' class 
of a gymnasium, will rarely bring forth any single man 
of merit, and the general average of physical excellence 
will be low. If I were asked how long systematic studies 
should be carried out, I should say with a class for quite 
eighteen months. In European military schools, where 
discipline is necessary, the regulation method never 
ceases. 

To teach systematically is not to be monotonous. I 
can vary the order of exercise. I can gain my object in 
more than one way, I have by systematic exercise a 
better opportunity of judging of the idiosyncrasies or 
physical peculiarities of my lads. 

In presenting the two types of the short and squat 
lad, and the thin and spare one, and trying to get them 
into good shape, I should be rightly held to task if I 
held to the assertion that the chunky lad never would 
make a sprinter, or the slim one never become a per- 
former of heavy work. I have seen, as have all trainers 
or teachers of physical exercise, many strange changes 
brought about by work in the gymnasium. Careful ex- 
ercise has, however, never failed in bringing forth fine 
results. The lad of heavy physique has been propor- 
tionately lightened, and the lighter man has been pro- 
portionately made heavier. 



ISO TRAINING. 

The plastic character of the body has sometimes struck 
me as marvellous. The one thing proven is that, by- 
good training, a higher type is always produced. Work 
has not stunted growth or checked it. It has given it a 
new start. If it were only a physical bettering that had 
come about, that would be something, but physical and 
mental improvements were distinctly appreciable. 

What the gymnasium, with outside work, has done 
for the man is better presented by foreign than by home 
statistics. Careful studies having been made, it looks 
as if military training, other than the mere manual of 
arms, has very much improved physical conditions 
abroad. Maclaren has presented some interesting sta- 
tistics of the measurements and weights of a detachment 
of non-commissioned ofificers sent to him to be qualified 
as military gymnastic instructors. Being a picked class 
of men, they show the best examples of a very thorough 
system. 

The men were all soldiers, from 19 to 28 years ; in 
height from 5 feet 5 inches to 5 feet 1 1^ inches, and in 
weight from 128 pounds to 174 pounds, so that extreme 
types were represented. These men worked for eight 
months and were systematically trained. It was found 
that they had gained on an average of ten pounds, with 
2| inches in girth of chest, | of an inch in the size of 
the fore-arm, li of the upper arm, while there was in 
every case an increase of height. 

A man of 28 had grown from 5 feet f inches to 5 feet 
8i inches. A man of 24 from 5 feet 8| inches to 5 feet 



TRAINING. 151 

9i inches. Expansions of the chest were wonderful. In 
one case, with a man of 24, the chest had grown from 
35 to a diameter of 40 inches. This increase in general 
muscular growth was not visible alone, but became 
rather amusing, because very soon the men could not 
get into their clothes. Military discipline had to be 
relaxed for a while, and so non-commissioned officers 
had to do duty in shirt-sleeves until the regimental 
tailor could make the necessary enlargements of their 
uniforms. 

What I want to show is not so much the increase of 
arms and legs, or chests, but actual growth due to gym- 
nastic exercises. It is not the lads who grow naturally 
with years, but the men, those of twenty-five, who can 
take on parts of inches. 

We all are hopeful that the time may come when that 
dread arbiter, the sword, may be forever sheathed. Nev- 
ertheless, if physical conditions are to be looked at, then 
a healthy man is a happier one, with better capacities 
for toil. Sound limbs give a sound brain. Military 
training then, such as it is to be found in Germany, 
does bring about great benefits to the Teutonic race. 

Taking not alone men with such advantages as phys- 
ical training gives them, women must derive benefit 
from the same sources. English anthropometrists are 
coming to the conclusion that their own women are in- 
creasing in height, and rather in the well-to-do classes 
than in the lower ranks. If there is any argument that 
can be advanced explanatory of this physical augmen- 



152 TRAINING. 

tation, it can only be due to this, that EngHsh women 
have taken more and more to indoor and outdoor exer- 
cise. Dr. Sargent's table of the average development of 
two hundred young men at Bowdoin College, brought 
about by simple apparatus, — as dumb-bells, Indian-clubs, 
and pulley-weights, — shows how little complicated mech- 
anisms have to do with physical increase. 

I have often tried to formulate what should be the 
precise routine of work to be undertaken in a gymna- 
sium. I confess my inability to do so. With a pupil 
before me, though I may be able to appreciate his re- 
quirements, the task is not so easy. It has been some- 
what my habit to make the tyro begin with light clubs, 
rather to induce suppleness at first than strength. Lift- 
ing of weights, pulley movements have been the last 
things for him to do. You never read in a book on 
physical exercise anything about ruptures, and these 
brought about by want of care on the part of exactly 
that person who should exercise the greatest care. I 
know all about the spring, the elasticity of youth, and 
how it is made to bend and never to break, and that 
there is " a kind of Providence for children and drunk- 
ards ''; but I have known, not children, but lads of fifteen 
or eighteen, badly hurt by attacking too suddenly work 
iiot apparently beyond their powers, but which by some 
unknown cause brought about lesion. 

It is the gradual introduction of the pupil to his work 
in the gymnasium which I would advise. By being 
cautious you gain your end sooner. Of all modern 



TRAINING. 153 

things in the gymnasium, I like the ^'medicine-bag'' the 
best. Nothing improves the man more than this — that 
is, after he has done some work. I have sometimes 
thought that if I ever did prescribe a simple exercise, it 
would be the medicine-bag. It takes room to work this 
properly, and two men can get more good out of a 
medicine-bag than one. It is a ball covered with leather, 
about twice the size of a Rugby foot-ball, made of hair 
and twine, and not too tightly stuffed. It should never 
weigh more than twelve pounds. I think it as good an 
all-around aid as I can find. The suspended ball, hung 
about on a line with an extended arm, is also excellent. 
If hung in a corner, so that it may rebound and be 
stopped, or driven off, as it flies toward the gymnast, 
or leaves him, this affords fine exercise. If it weigh 
eighteen pounds, that is quite heavy enough. When 
over twenty pounds, to strike it and work at it rap- 
idly becomes violent exercise. I advise beginners to be 
cautious, however. This suspended ball or bag, except- 
ing that it does not strike back, represents very closely 
the efforts made by the pugilist, and is on that account 
very much in favor by the professional boxer. Parallel 
bars are made not alone horizontal and perpendicular, 
but on a slant from the floor. Perhaps some of these 
are over-refinements. Still if some few of the fourteen 
varieties I know of are really superfluous in a physical 
sense, at least they are mental helps, for novelty stim- 
ulates. I am very much in favor of the nautical wheel, 
having noted its good effects. It works the biceps in 



154 TRAINING. 

a new direction, and is good for the antagonistic mus- 
cles. It is not because it has a nautical look that it 
seems good. It has intrinsic merits. I never have, how- 
ever, seen much in the various inclined planes for leg 
developments. Special work for legs I believe in, but 
benefits are to be had by simpler methods. Somehow, 
though I have never slighted legs, as I have before 
stated, legs in a normal man seem to better themselves 
sooner than any other portion of the human structure. 
The reason is, that unless we are asleep or seated, our 
legs are always doing their work. If they were not au- 
tomatically in business all the time, we would crumble 
like a ruin, our props giving way. 

Machines for improving the grip include the bettering 
of the wrist, and consequently the whole arm. Grip 
comes readily. There is hardly an exercise, the hands 
being called into play, where the tendons in the fingers 
have not to do their part. Sometimes I have thought 
that the wrist exercise called on too much local energy. 
I mean to say, I have known of pupils with wrist 
troubles from the use of this machine. The effects were 
transient, but there was no reason why they should have 
existed at all. The other form of machines, called ^' fore- 
arm developers,'' where a small handle is turned, ham- 
pered by a mechanical device, I have found brought 
about better results. 

There is a tendency of late to put the spring-board as 
among the lumber of the past, and I think not wisely. 
For general leg-work — improving the knee and ankle, 



TRAINING. 155 

teaching the toes their proper individual movement, and 
reaching higher up than the thighs to the abdominal 
muscles, with those of the waist — I know of nothing 
better for beginners than the old-fashioned spring-board. 
I do not like the coiled wire-spring with which modern 
spring-boards are provided. Such metallic springs do 
not work evenly. I favor the old-fashioned ash-built 
spring-board that would send the lad flying into space 
with but slight effort. As an exercise it certainly 
brought out confidence and grace. A gymnasium without 
a horse to vault over is no gymnasium. It is ** Hamlet '' 
with the Dane left out. The horse is certainly the 
oldest of all gymnastic paraphernalia, for the advantages 
of it were at once manifest. It leads directly to the 
more precise jump over the bars. The Germans beat 
us all to pieces with their work on the horse. That spe- 
cial exercise they have made perfect, and can show us 
many feats of skill with the horse we never dreamed of. 
The horse, and how to vault, might be almost called a 
" Turn-Verein '' specialty. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

TRAINING WITH REFERENCE TO SPEED. 
Sprinting — Running — Hurdling — Walking. 

So far we have been directing our attention to all- 
around work, such as has its formation in the gymna- 
sium, and is practiced there without specializing any par- 
ticular kind of work. Strictly adhering to the idea of 
preparation as only obtainable in the gymnasium, we 
now come to one of the most important specialties of 
training, and that is the attaining of speed by the man. 
If we consider it scientifically, speed is an exercise that 
requires the repetition of certain precise muscular move- 
ments. It is a type of violent muscular exercise. Run 
hard and long, do over and over the same things with a 
precise action, and there comes quickly enough the in- 
dication that it is a violent exercise, for you suffer from 
want of breath. The greatest amount of work is to be 
done in the briefest time. You contract and expand, 
and contract and expand one set of muscles. I do not 
think a sprinter ever suffers much from any of those 
physical aches which gymnastic exercises sometimes 
produce. It is breathlessness that really stops him or 
slows him. In no exercise a man takes is there such a 

demand made on him for vital energy as in running, 

(156) 



TRAINING. 157 

and for that expenditure of energy the repairing pro- 
cess is longer. 

No work then tells so rapidly on the man as does 
running at high speed. If the man keeps his weight 
when in training he is doing well. He is giving more 
away in the ten seconds, or the ten minutes, or the hour, 
than he can get back in ten times that period of rest. 

The preparation for the man who is to run must be 
thorough, and yet over preparation hurts a man. Just 
the time when a man may be in his prime, may not be 
his race day. The art of the trainer is not so much to 
keep his man back, as having in mind when is the exact 
day of the race, to have his pupil ready for it. An ex- 
champion said to me, ^^ The 100-yard dash needs the 
nicest training of all the runs.'* I question whether 
there is really more nicety required just then than for 
the longer dashes. Perhaps more skill and practice for 
this special work is requisite. But there is no question 
that to get in ahead does require great perfection of 
training. 

If sprinting is considered as a fine art, it wants the 
man to carry himself at the top of his speed from the 
time the pistol is fired to the last inch of the track. He 
may or may not quicken his time, for a 100-yard dash 
does not permit of any nice calculations. As has been 
previously stated, almost any fair-limbed boy can run a 
good gait for 50 yards, but the ordinary young man who 
had not been trained cannot cover the 100 yards, say in 
20 seconds. Now this distance has been run over in 



158 



TRAINING. 





THE SET— POSITION FOR STARTING. 



9^ seconds; 125 yards in I2| seconds; 150 yards in 

I4f seconds; 220 yards in 2 if seconds; the quarter 

mile in 47I seconds ; and 600 yards in 7 if seconds. 

To train for speed, 
a man must bear in 
mind that it is gradual 
work that helps him 
most. Let distances 
to be covered be at 
first short. Never try 
to be lightning. Keep 

that commodity, if you have any of it, until the time 

has come to use it, which will be later on. 

If you are on the rise of your life and improving, you 

can bear then that great exhaustion of trying to do your 

very best once before 

the time the race takes 

place, but I should be 

fearful of repeating it 

too soon before the 

actual contest. Occa- 
sionally do your best 

and spurt, but not for 

, ITTI RAC:iNG. 

too long. When you 

slow down, try and consider exactly what is your condi- 
tion. If you feel no worse for the extra exertion as you 
finish the run, put in the speed again. Long, speedy 
walks, at not too fast a gait, taken every day, are neces- 
sities. If weather does not allow of it, find some covered 




TRAINING. 159 

Space to walk in. All the time watch out, so as not to 
over-train. It is so easy to jam your muscles, so as to 
produce friction. Suddenly you become stale, and then 
your chances diminish. 

As to diet, it should be the same as for any other 
kind of training. There is no special food for cham- 
pions. Sleep the full eight hours, and be careful as to 
the ventilation of your room. Sprinting, I think, is un- 
fitted for lads. I never want to see a lad of less than six- 
teen years old on the track. I know there have been some 
marvels who were less than sixteen. I am afraid, and have 
to be afraid of such lads, from a careful consideration of 
the subject. I am always in dread of organic troubles. 
When we kill a boy or so, because his heart literally 
breaks, then the folly of this business will be seen. A 
two-year-old is more mature as an animal than a boy of 
sixteen, and a boy is more valuable than the best horse 
ever foaled. 

I have occasionally seen young human colts rushing 
gallantly over the track, and I have made no bones of 
asking trainers, " Why are such things permitted ? '' 
Some years ago there was a public exhibition of boys 
in an American city doing this kind of thing, and the 
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children ought 
to have interfered. Fox and hounds I have not the 
least objection to. There are accidents of ground which 
necessarily slacken speed. Boys get their breath again, 
and no harm comes from such running. It is the tre- 
mendous work imposed on an immature organism which 



l6o TRAINING. 

hurts it. The consequences may not be immediate. 
What I am sure about is, that a break down is certain 
to come in the future. I have yet to see the fleetness 
in a lad of tender years with sustaining power. We 
race young horses, we force them by feeding. It is a 
money problem. We race horses as soon as we can, in 
order to get as speedy a return as possible for our out- 
lay. If the horse breaks down afterward, he has secured 
his owner's purpose. I am sorry to believe that if it 
were possible to do the same thing with young boys, 
there would be men found who would, work on such 
immature subjects, and find, too, speculators willing to 
abet such wicked performances. 

For long-distance running nicer calculation may be 
brought into play. It may be made a hot contest from 
the beginning to the close. I have had champions tell 
me that never more than once, during their training for 
long-distance running, had they covered the whole dis- 
tance at their best speed. They had done their utmost 
for three-fourths of the distance, and so made the time 
calculation of what it would have taken to get over the 
last fourth. It must be near the close of the training 
that the effort is to be made, but exactly when depends 
on conditions. Trainers rightly object to a man giving 
away his force when not called upon to do it. It is the 
saving up of the capital until the time comes to spend 
it, that they look to. 

Men who run are very poor judges of their own time. 
They never should worry over it. They ought to have 



TRAINING. l6l 

their minds free from any anxieties. The longer race, 
however, does admit of brain work in the observation of 
one's competitors, and so conditions may be altered. 
But decisions have to be made with great promptness. 
When a man hesitates he is lost. A good runner, but a 
man who schemes too much, often '^ gets left.*' Train- 
ing for running long distances differs in no respect from 
that for sprinting. Generally men fail from being too 
fine. This overworked condition, with the additional 
strain the man takes, does him the most harm. He 
may lose his place, not only for the event of to-day, but 
for a whole season. 

Public taste rather favors sprinting. The reason is 
that it is a contest which is of the shortest duration. 
I openly confess a liking rather for the half-mile, the 
mile, and the three-mile run. 

There is more knack in sprinting, so much being de- 
termined in the method of getting off. I have known 
men who were hard to beat for the half mile, who never 
could catch the knack of ^^ the set,'* and, som.ehow hav- 
ing the personal equation slow, could not get away as 
quickly as they might at the pistol shot. 

In the longer running race, if a man knows his gait, it is 
a good thing not to push himself hard until the finish ; 
but then everything depends on the speed of those who 
run against him. The spurt at the close may be too 
late, and a man who has done his best from the first to 
the last will win. The professional may not make his 
run for time, for to be handicapped in the future is 



1 62 TRAINING. 

what he is afraid of. The amateur ought to try and do 
his best all the way through. I like ^* cutting the pace.*' 

A man who can cover his mile in five minutes and ten 
seconds has possibilities. Four minutes and fifty sec- 
onds is very good time. Four minutes and forty 
seconds is remarkable, and it has been done in 4:i8| 
by the one man in the million. For the half mile the 
time ought to be comparatively quicker, and it is. The 
half mile in 2:12 is good, and anybody with that perform- 
ance may trust some day to be among the illustrious. 
For a number of years 1:5 5f was the top notch, but 1:5 5i 
has been accomplished for the half mile. 

A three-mile race calls for prodigious efforts. The 
man, to make a record, must be in a measure matured. 
There can be no sprinting in it. I think more than 
anything else, a three-mile race shows the prowess of 
the man, plus that improvement judicious training 
gives. I never want it tried by any one who is not 
sound from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes. 
The least wind defects tell. 

Taking 4:40 to be a very good record for one mile, for 
three miles it ought to be about 14 minutes. But 
the single mile has been run in 4:i8f. The time made 
by the greatest runner, shows how distance increases 
diflficulties. The best time yet recorded for the three- 
mile race in the United States, is 14 minutes and 39 
seconds. In England 14 minutes and 29^ seconds is 
the astounding record. Anybody who ever can run 
three miles in 17 minutes, may hope to do better things. 



TRAINING. 



163 



Men who run well, naturally take to hurdling. The 
obstacles to be cleared give diversity to the race. 
Though it looks easy, it is not every sprinter who can 
become a good hurdler. You must not only be able to 
run fast, but get the knack of managing your legs, so 
that in the jurnps you do not impede motion. When 
the hurdle is cleared, how to have the leg you light on 
ready to take the im- 
pact and yet retain 
its force, so as to give 
the impetus to a for- 
ward move; requires 
great practice. If 120 
yards on the level 
can be run in, say 13 
seconds, or less, it is 
a very able hurdler 
who can clear hurdles 
by the addition of 3 
or 4 seconds to that 

time over the same ground. With 30-inch hurdles the 
jump is inconsiderable, and the effort of the hurdler seems 
slight, but when 12 inches are added to the height of 
the hurdles there is no skimming. Over a 42-inch bar- 
rier it hampers the even stride, and yet to make speed 
it must not do so. " Handiness '' with your feet is a 
necessity. There is a great demand for skill in hur- 
dling, much more than is usually accorded to it by the 
public. 




READY FOR THE HURDLES. 



164 TRAINING. 

Hurdles are put 10 yards apart. There are 10 of 
them. The run to them is of 10 yards, and the finish of 
20 yards. The 120 yards and the 220 are the standards. 
Generally the two sizes of 30 and 4oinch hurdles are 
used, occasionally 36-inch ones. I have thought that 
the expenditure of vital energy in hurdling, though very 
great, was not, however, quite as severe as in straight 
spurting. If measured by the lifting power it would 
apparently be more, for the 10 additional rises of the 
man would have to be considered ; but, nevertheless, at 
that rise there is some slight change in the muscular 
movement, which is of advantage to the hurdler, for 
physiologically the thing that tires most is the working 
over and over again of precisely the same muscles. 

The ten 42-inch hurdles and 220 yards, have been 
covered in 26f seconds, and twice this distance with 
the same obstacle in 6i|. This last feat is a marvellous 
performance, approaching the speed of the best man on 
the flat. Not to lose sight of the physiological consid- 
erations developed in exercises of speed, I want to call 
attention once more to the enormous" power of the legs 
and their endurance, and I refer back to the gymnasium 
where the education of the leg is to be recommenced. 

Legs and thorax may seem to have no immediate 
connection, but they have. Try and run, or jump and 
leap with your ribs rigid or hampered, and it is an im- 
possibility. No motion can be given to the leg that 
there is not development brought about higher up. We 
breathe better because we can run well, and inversely 



TRAINING. 165 

we run better because we breathe better. No man runs 

well who has not commenced his apprenticeship in the 

gymnasium. 

WALKING. 

How may I write about walking? I have already 
acknowledged a certain amount of prejudice against it, 
but only in the respect that I think it occupies too much 
public attention, and men waste their time at it. No 
human being is there, knowing anything about walking, 
who does not openly declare that this performance on 
the track calls for an artificial gait. Now, whatever is 
" artificial '' never can have any positive or fixed rules to 
govern it, so whenever there are walkers and walking- 
matches, there are constant disputes over the performers 
and their performances. 

^* What is that man doing ? Why does he go along 
that way for, father ? ** I heard a lad of ten ask his father. 

" I am sure I don't know. But really for a cripple, 
my boy, he seems to be going really fast,** was the reply 
of the father to his boy. 

One advocate of *^ walking '* says something to this 
effect : " Oh, it's grand, and for this reason : After you 
know how to walk in what we might call an unnatural 
way, it is just splendid to walk in a natural way ! '' 

For my own instruction, I have had professional walk- 
ers tell me what they considered to be the exact gait, 
what was the irreproachable style, and I never could get 
two of them to agree. I am led to believe that in one 
or two respects only, are men of one mind in regard to 



1 66 TRAINING. 

what is fair walking. One is, that " only one foot must be 
on the ground at a time.*' Another is, that *^ the knees must 
not be bent when the feet strike the ground, but remain 
rigid until after they leave it.'* Now comes in a third rule, 
which is the source of many disputes, and it is the enforced 
one, that " the heel of the forward foot must strike the 
ground simultaneously, as the toe of the rear foot leaves 
it.'* I have sometimes thought that I never saw in my 
life but three pedestrians who honestly kept to these rules, 
and they were not professionals. I do not tax those 
who have made records with unfairness, but unwittingly 
they do get every now and then outside of the rules. 

I have seen many amateurs who thought they were 
walking, and were walking naturally it is true, but un- 
naturally as far as athletic ordinances went. To patent 
walking would be like the invention of that ingenious 
man Dean Swift describes, who made a knife to cut cab- 
bage with, which would cut it better than anything else, 
save a common table-knife. 

" Heel-and-toe '* walking is the common name for 
such performance and is used for want of a better one. 
To walk with a hip juggle is the common designation. 
I do not hesitate in calling it an astonishing perform- 
ance. There being 1,760 yards to the mile, a man to 
go his mile within the 8 minutes, must cover 11 feet 
each second, or about 220 yards the minute. That is 
just a step of 1 1 feet a second. I give this, as does the 
general public, the highest applause, but I think, as do 
many who have a knowledge of this business, that it is only 



TRAINING. 167 

those who have studied this artificial gait who know the 
difficulties of it. It is '^ a technical pleasure/' which only 
the Anglo-Saxon race has been educated to appreciate. 
As to grace, it is the very opposite to it. The walker 
must take poses which imitate those of a machine. If he 
does overcome, in a measure, the right and left graceful 
sway of the runner, his compensation is to bob up and 
down, diminishing with an effort this horizontal movement 
by means of his hips. He runs off his level at the waist. 

I do not decry walking. I cannot see anything hurt- 
ful in this exercise, only I am positive that walking has 
been carried to too great an extreme. The public is 
appreciating the walk less than it did. As a recent 
writer expresses it, '^ the high-bred sprinter '' excites 
the spectators ; the " common horse-gait *' does not. 
Some of these walking performances are wonderful ; a 
mile with all this hampering has been made in 6 minutes 
29^ seconds; two miles in 13 minutes 48I seconds; 
three miles in 21 minutes g\ seconds; five miles in 
38 minutes ^ second ; seven miles in 54 minutes 7 sec- 
onds, and ten miles in yy minutes 40^ seconds. 

The fatigue of such performances is very great, and 
the best training is a necessity. The endurance of the 
man must be brought to its highest pitch. The use-up 
after the performance I have thought was excessive. I 
shall lay myself open to be called a man with a prej- 
udice, but I cannot help thinking that a pedestrian is 
a man wasted, and I repeat the maxim, that ^' the play 
is not worth the candle.'' 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

TRAINING FOR THE RUNNING HIGH JUMP. 

The jump is the most specialized of all athletic per- 
formances. I can imagine of nothing in a physiological 
sense, which required exactly the same concentration 
of movements. With the jump, if it be the record- 
breaking one, comes that electric discharge of acquired, 
accumulated, or stored force, the effects of which Pfliiger 
calls ** the nervous avalanche.'' In a previous chapter I 
have presented at length the advantages derivable from 
the gymnasium ; the champion jumper gives it the 
weight of his experience. Mr. Page writes : 

*' The first thing is to get strong, and a boy must at- 
tend a good gymnasium, placing himself under the care 
of the superintendent, who will direct what exercises he 
requires, and how long he shall work at each kind. 
Boys are apt to overdo exercise when left alone, and 
nothing is so detrimental to athletic success as this, for 
it transforms tissue that should be healthful and some- 
what fatty into hard muscle, an unnatural development 
for young boys. A competent director will decide when 
his charge has had enough, and a year's work in a well- 
conducted gymnasium will make out of a sickly boy 
* a sound, sane youth.' 

" The high jump being special work, particular atten- 

(168) 



TRAINING. 



169 




tion is to be paid to vaulting over the bars. All tenden- 
cies to become jammed about the ankles, the knees, 

and the hip-joints should be 
evaded. You do not always 
work in a gymnasium to 
strengthen certain muscles, as 
much as to stretch and limber 
others. It is not rapid but 
gradual training which brings 
about the high jump. 

** The training, as far as food 
and rest go, is the same as 
A FAIRLY STRAIGHT JUMP. for any othcr cxercisc. When 

working in the open air, no over-exhausting trials of 
strength are permissible.*' 

Mr. Page thus describes 
his method on the day of the 
contest : 

" I rise late and breakfast 
at ten o'clock. The meal 
consists of a good portion 
of porridge, followed by as 
many chops or as much beef- 
steak as may be needed, but 
no fluid except the milk on 
the porridge. During the remainder of the morning I 
take another meal, consisting of a slice of beef and a bit 
of toast without fluid."* 




A SIDE JUMP. 



* Harper* s Young People, 



I/O 



TRAINING. 



Before the work the man is rubbed down and pre- 
pared for the contest. To fuss about anything which 
could have been attended to before is to waste energy. 
What is to be done is to save yourself for the supreme 
moment. There is a knack in the high jump, and this 







f^'lllWIWlM ' 



skill never comes but with long work. It all lies in per- 
fect muscular adjustment. Style and elegance alone 




From Harper's Young People —Copyright, 1888, by Harper & Brother*. 
EASY STYLE IN A LOW JUMP. 

exist when everything acts in unison. Mr. Page's final 
expression is one worthy of remembering, and it is, " that 



TRAINING. 



171 



a man should do his best/' for it is far more honorable 
for an amateur athlete to show a fine performance, than 
to win all the prizes in creation by means of doubtful 
handicapping. 

I favor slight sprinting for jumpers in order to bring 
about limberness and spring, but distances must be 



^ 




From Harper's "Young People.— Copyright, 1888, by Harper & Brothers, 
HORIZONTAL POSITION WHILE '* SHOOTING" ACROSS THE BAR, 

short, and the runs at long intervals, — not more than 
three times a week, and only one in the week when the 
event is to be attempted. Never try the high jump 
without spikes. 

The fling of the body, the twist, when the man is 
higher than the bars, takes a great deal of practice. A 
man does it without trouble when vaulting by using his 



172 



TRAINING. 



hands. The thing is to try and do without any manual 
help. Working this with a low jump is not so easy as 
it seems, because the time of the rise is too short for 




From Harper's Young People.— Copyrifrht, 1888, by Harper A Brothen. 
LANDING IN GOOD STYLE. 

the fling of the body. Begin with a fair high jump, 
high enough for the parallel motion of the body with 
the bar, to be carried on at the same time. It is an art 

to do it neatly without 
scraping the bar. To 
turn facing the bar is not 
so hard. Try so as not 
to fall on your feet too 
squarely. You can al- 
ways recover and face 
your jump in good time. 
In an instant the good 
jumper has resumed his upright position. 

•In looking at the high jumps, what I have tried to 
understand most was the preparation, — the take-off. If 




READY FOR THE TURN. 



TRAINING. 173 

the run is too long, the jump is lowered. The effort is 
upward, horizontal, not so much forward. The foot — 
the left one — gives not alone the impulse, but the spin 
which is requisite, and the more amazing does it seem 
when we consider that it is in no small measure the 
foot and the one leg which fire off the human rocket. 
There is some question as to how many different move- 
ments there are in a high jump, — certainly twelve of them, 
if not more. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



TRAINING FOR POLE VAULTING. 



To use the pole in vaulting requires not alone the 
utmost elasticity of the legs, but at the same time great 
arm power. The movement is complicated. First, there 

is the natural spring of 
the man, plus that of the 
pole, and at a certain 
moment arm power is 
required, which permits, 
as in the English style, 
of the man's climbing up 
the pole. Pole climb- 
ing is rather the Eng- 
lish than the American 
method of surmounting 
the difficulty, 
t The best American 
pole vaulter never 
changes the position of 
his hands after he has his hold on the pole, but he does 
lift himself over by its means when he is in the proper 
position. When the hands of the champion Englishman 

leave the pole, they are from three and a half to four 
(174) 




OVER THE BAR. 



TRAINING. 



175 



feet higher than when the first hold was taken. The 
English record is two inches higher than ours, and their 
method, though not so pretty, is perfectly legitimate. 

Eleven feet and seven inches is a prodigious jump. 
With certain improvements of the pole, such as giving 
the points where it 
takes the ground a 
tripod form, great- 
er heights may be 
scaled. This work 
requires the utmost 
nicety of execution, 
for with the least 
hitch or want of co- 
ordination a fall, and 
a heavy one, is com- 
mon. 

The training is not special, only greater attention 
must be paid to the muscular development of the arms 
and chest. Together with sprinting, there should be a 
good deal of work given to the arms and muscles of the 
back. As in all these special performances, to over- 
train is to spoil a man, yet constant practice is a neces- 
sity, and just here lies the dilemma. Save yourself, and 
the sleight-of-hand of the thing escapes you. The only 
way is to keep working at such lower heights, which do 
not call for the whole of a man's powers. He must 
keep his supreme effort for the time when he is to do 
his best. 




LETTING GO OF THE POLE. 



176 TRAINING. 

It is worth mentioning that in some of the older 
countries, as in France and Holland, the long jump 
with the pole (not the up jump) is of very ancient date. 
Where small brooks and rivulets abound, or even canals 
or ditches, poles have been used from time immemorial 
by shepherds and hunters. A new sport, and not an 
uninteresting one, might be presented in this direction. 



CHAPTER XX. 



TRAINING FOR CYCLING. 



I BEGIN at once by the statement, that more young 
men are damaged in a physical way in cycling than by 
any other athletic performance, for want of training. 
That speed which is kept up without consideration as 
to stamina, too often ends in a break 
down. It is not so much the green- 
horns who go to pieces, as men 
who having trained, stop work, and 
then without any precautions go in 
again. I have tried to study partic- 
ularly the causes for this use-up and 
failure, and I am of the opinion that 
rigidity of the arms, the somewhat 
over-strained position of the abdo- 
men, with great expenditure of 
force from the waist downward, 
bring about the trouble. 

The perfectly trained man feels no more inconven- 
ience from sharp or protracted work on the wheel than 
from any other athletic performance ; but the half-trained 
man is sure to suffer. The bicycle, as I have heard a 
well-versed athlete describe it, " is Circe.'' By that he 

(177) 




178 TRAINING. 

meant that the exercise is so delightful, that it leads 
you on and on, and then you suffer, before you know 
how it happens, from its blandishments. 

These remarks are intended, of course, for those who 
put themselves in training for a race, and not for those 
who jog along country roads. Even to these latter Dr. 
B. W. Richardson gives a word of advice. He says that 
all riding which tends to bend the body forward must, 
if continued, ''produce stooping." This excellent au- 
thority insists that when amateurs ride, one mile in 
every eight ought to be made on foot ; or that in a 
fifty- mile excursion with a bicycle, a man should walk at 
least six miles. 

In training for cycling, I particularly advise a great 
deal of work, without any machine at all, especially at 
the beginning. The right method of how to ride must 
have been acquired long before. A man should take a 
sharp forty minutes* walk every morning and sprint oc- 
casionally. If he is on the track with the machine later 
on, say at midday, he may take not more than an hour's 
work, and though he may run at a good speed he should 
refrain from doing his best. When he has been rubbed 
off, bathed, and dried, I advise his doing nothing at all 
until the afternoon. Then he ought to be in his primest 
condition and able to face big work. He may then try 
for speed, still not giving himself entirely away. The 
instant he feels breathlessness, that moment he must 
put on the brakes. Slowing up he recovers. He can 
then try a fast spurt again, arresting motion the instant 



TRAINING. 179 

distress is apparent. He should make these tentative 
efforts in order to see for himself what is his condition. 
In a few days he ought to experience little trouble with 
more speedy recoveries. 

I have said that the position of the man on the bicy- 
cle was one of constraint. " Always sit straight '' is a 
rule found in every book, but this position is rarely fol- 
lowed. " Hold the body still and sit down/' is another 
canon of cycling which is not often observed. See 
any print of a cyclist on the full go, and the artist sits 
him like a jockey. Look at the next bicycle race for 
yourself. The man cannot go fast in any other way. 
The abdomen is compressed and folded in, and if that 
position is to be retained to accomplish the work, it re- 
quires special education. Plying the pedals so as to be 
master of the machine and to get every second of speed 
out of the wheel, is given only to the few. 

In my own experience, I am certain that I have had 
more complaints made of pupils " feeling badly after 
hard cycling work,*' than from any other exercise. I 
have seen good results from having cyclists take an inter- 
mediate course of such exercises as would develop the 
muscles of the back and chest. I have tried to straighten 
out the curved upper portion of the body and to flatten 
the stoop. I do not mean to say that I am infallible, 
but just as I can almost always spot a fencer by the un- 
usual development of his right shoulder, and strangely 
enough a depression of that side, so can I indicate the 
cyclist. He is good from the waist downward, and 



l80 TRAINING. 

nothing like as good from the waist upward. He has a 
little crook forward. This only tends to show that the 
man is plastic and moulds himself to his apparatus. His 
form fits itself to its requirements. A great cyclist 
would not be great if this was not the case. It is the 
selection of the fittest. 

I should fail in my duty did I not give my opinion as 
to the effects of cycling on those who, having made rec- 
ords, are inclined to indulge in too many performances. 
I think they use themselves up more rapidly than any 
other class of athletes. Dr. Richardson may not be an 
expert in training, nor as well acquainted with the 
events of the track, as the reader, but he certainly is a 
physiologist of great distinction. He writes in regard 
to cycling, not in a general, but in a special way, directed 
toward those who make or break records : ** They are 
exhausting their capital stock of vitality, and that there 
is no going back for more capital, no making up by rest 
prime loss from the original capacity." 

I may be brought to task for giving my opinion about 
cycling, but what I mean is this : That there must be 
moderation in cycling. I believe with the best of Eng- 
lish authorities, that the intervals between events are 
too short in the United States, and that in their con- 
tests, often repeated, men are spoiled. I have endeav- 
ored in a measure to account for the peculiarities of the 
bicycle. I am right in a physiological sense. The same 
movement is repeated over and over again with the 
utmost celerity, which is just the thing to call on local- 



TRAINING. l8l 

ized muscle for all it can do. That condition, it may be 
said, follows many other performances. To this I give 
my assent, but I add that neither in running nor sprinting 
is the position of the body constrained. You always 
want as much wind as you can get with open draught 
and furnace capacity, and when you have to stoop double 
and choke the flues, as when cycling, it is that which 
brings on the troubles. 

There ought to be a rule of age adopted by athletic 
clubs, which would prevent any one competing in a race 
for even a single mile, who was not of age. I sum up 
what are the advantages of the bicycle. Under the 
supervision of a doctor, I have used it with marked 
advantage to develop the leg of a child, where there 
was one limb showing a decided tendency to shrinkage. 

In moderation for the business man, I know of no ex- 
ercise tending more to dissipate the trouble of sedentary 
life than the bicycle. Excess of anything is to be depre- 
cated, and because cycling is the most alluring of all 
outdoor exercises, I have wanted to show the harm 
which follows the abuse of the wheel. 

TRAINING FOR BASE-BALL. 

Good all-around qualities are necessities for the base- 
ball player. He must not only be strong but swift. 
Distances between bases are short, but considerable 
speed must be shown in covering these. General run- 
ning, with sprinting, brings of course fleetness. The 
apparatus to induce strength of arm, and the increase of 



1 82 TRAINING. 

particular muscle for throwing, are well brought out by 
the use of the rings, and particularly by the " spool/' 
This is a piece of hollow wood, strung on a rope, which 
rope is stretched from about the man's shoulder to the 
wall, the incline being fairly rapid. By repeated use of 
the spool, the art of throwing a ball is acquired. Dumb- 
bells, clubs, boxing, running, — all help the base-ball as- 
pirant. Practice in wire cages so as to pitch, is only 
good up to a certain point. Winter training as special 
for base-ball amounts to a great deal. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

« 

TRAINING FOR OARSMEN AND SCULLERS. 

To give the uninitiated ones any of the instructions 
common to Yale, Harvard, Cambridge, or Oxford, as to 
the art of rowing, would be to make them demented. Take 
the first direction, ^^ to keep a stiff back and row ''; that 
alone would seem impossible. 

The scope of this work is not such as to lay down the 
methods of rowing, but it ought to show what are the 
muscles called on in pulling an oar. Mr. William Blaikie 
brings out in a striking manner the fact that rowing 
does not develop the man, in that all-around, general 
way the public supposes. The position is one which 
tends to cramp the body. It does call on certain mus- 
cles for all they can perform, and has no use for others. 
Remembering the law that development follows stimu- 
lation, as effect does cause, we have then the construc- 
tion of certain muscles, and the destruction, or rather 
the lessening, of the growth of others. A rower's arms 
and back are not always good, especially the upper 
arm, while legs and thighs have increased strength and 
bulk. The English rule of the scientific school of the 
oarsman, is that the biceps must not do the entire work, 
but that the shoulder muscles should give their power 

(183) 



1 84 TRAINING. 

too. In the best school of oarsmen there are twenty- 
seven distinct movements. 

I have never known anything akin to deformity arise 
from over-rowing. Cases of vital exhaustion may hap- 
pen, but such would occur with any exercise. I do not 
look then for any great power in an oarsman's arms. 
The biceps are certainly not prominent, but where the in- 
crease comes is to the extenders of the vertebral column. 
If there was a mechanism which would distinguish be- 
tween arm and leg power, in scientific rowing (all the 
apparatus of stretchers and sliding seats being in use), 
such mechanism would inevitably show that most of 
the power came from the loins. Lagrange intimates, 
that if after a long rest, an oarsman takes to his work 
again his arms may tire, but it is his legs that hurt him. 
I think this shows which portion of the system has been 
most taxed. I am certain that the astounding power of 
a great oarsman who pulls alone (not making one of a 
crew), and above all his endurance, arises from the fact 
that, though he moves like a machine, it is the necessity 
for constant change of position which keeps him up. 
Examining the action, the vertebrae never are jammed. 
The chest may be at one moment of the pull some little 
compressed when a man rows alone, but that only hap- 
pens for the briefest interval of time. 

In the study or analysis of the principal movements, 
not for rowing alone, but for all other exercises, I have 
wanted that the physiological or body conditions should 
never escape me. If we can understand them, we can 



TRAINING. 185 

make up the defects arising from either the want of 
strength in particular muscles, or if they be over-devel- 
oped by particular work, how best to modify them. 

TRAINING FOR BOATING. 

Taking the collegiate as the type of material, it is ex- 
cellent. It is supposable that the man who aspires to 
row in the College boat is neither indolent nor has 
acquired bad habits. Necessarily, he cannot have the 
hardihood to assume such a responsibility as being one 
of the crew without having been through the gymna- 
sium. Generally the young man has been rated by his 
mates, and his all-around proficiency has been gauged. 
It is raw material capable of improvement. 

The coarser methods of training employed many years 
ago were driven out of the field when this better ele- 
ment was presented. Personal differences in the indi- 
vidual will, however, always remain. 

The men of the crew ought to b,e out of their beds by 
5.30, if in June. If it be in May, by 6 o*clock. They 
ought to have had their full eight hours' sleep. If 
some want a half or even a full hour's sleep more, let 
them go to bed earlier, for there is to be no sleeping in 
the day. As soon as men are mustered, they should 
have a piece of stale bread and a half tumbler of milk. 
The men should take a brisk walk of a mile, or a mile 
and a half, before breakfast. Any running should be 
then strictly prohibited. On returning to quarters they 
should have a good sponging off with cold water, fol- 



1 86 TRAINING. 

lowed by a sound rubbing. It ought to be now eight 
o'clock, and the nearer to eight the better, and break- 
fast should be ready. This is a serious meal. The 
men may eat beefsteak or mutton chops, not rare or 
over-done, but just about middling cooked. Bread 
ought to be stale, and that stale bread toasted and 
eaten cold. I do not limit butter, and never exclude 
it. I do not want to stint food in any way. I have not 
the least objection to berries. I limit the fluid and its 
kind, and it should be tea, and that not too strong, with or 
without milk, and never more than two moderately-sized 
cupfuls, to be taken at one time. I think sugar makes no 
difference. I do not give eggs for breakfast, boiled or 
fried, nor in an omelet. I would very much rather see a 
man eat heartily than the contrary. I do not believe that 
after Milo had carried his four-year-old heifer, he ate it 
all up ; but certainly he ought to have had appetite 
enough to polish off a good deal of beef. 

The midday meal, because the most serious work of 
the day comes after it, must be light. I am afraid of 
over-taxing the digestive powers of the men. The mid- 
day meal may be a mutton chop, a beefsteak — not as 
much in quantity as at breakfast — with a salad. Bread 
always must be stale. Beverage should be water. I 
make it a point to have meat at the midday meal. 
When the work is over for the day, then comes the 
sponging and rubbing off, and the crew is ready for din- 
ner. Excepting that all greasy or high-spiced sauces 
are absent, and that the bread is stale and there is rarely 



TRAINING. 187 

any wine, the dinner may be pretty much like anybody 
else's dinner. I think roast meat as good as broiled. I 
see nothing objectionable in having fresh fish or chicken. 
Vegetables may be of all sorts. Men are not inclined 
to make their dinner on potatoes, as a general rule, but 
green vegetables are what are wanted. At dessert there 
are to be no puddings nor pies, but fresh fruit if it is 
procurable; or if not in season, stewed canned fruit. 
Some of the English crews have calves*-foot jelly at 
dessert. If this is made from the feet, there is nutri- 
ment in it. If manufactured from gelatine, it is per- 
fectly useless as food. 

I like to have my men accustom themselves to tea at 
dinner, and think I have noticed general benefits arising 
from its use. Not more than two cups of tea should be 
taken at any meal, or two tumblers of water, and never 
ice water. At the beginning of work I have seen real 
distress arising from thirst. If this is evident, I have 
increased the quantity of fluid to as much as twice the 
above-mentioned amount, then gradually diminished it 
to the prescribed quantity. I have never given ale or 
lager-beer, because I have a wholesome dread of boils. 

Now, as to the exceptions to this regimen. Two 
years ago I commenced giving a man, who wanted tone, 
a little sound French wine, mixing it with water. It 
did him an immense amount of good. I can almost say 
I noticed improvement within twenty-four hours in this 
particular case. Then, of course, the rest of the crew 
wanted red wine. The stock of Burgundy gave out and 



1 88 TRAINING. 

a sound California wine was substituted for it. This was 
certainly a heavier wine, with more alcohol in it than 
the French wine. I could see no bad effects from 
it. I am not so tied to an opinion as to insist that it 
did not do the men good. If visible conditions were 
not improved, at least I thought I noticed at once 
greater alacrity for work. 

In recent works on English training, not for rowing 
exclusively, but for all kinds of work, I think the use of 
light wine in moderation is becoming more general. I 
see no reason why it may not be given occasionally. 
Sherry and Port I never would give countenance to. As 
to whiskey and brandy, it is simply impossible for a 
man to train who uses them. A work on training is 
not a temperance book, but nothing inculcates moder- 
ation more positively than those processes necessary in 
order to bring men into the best condition. 

I do not see this recorded in books on the subject, 
but for exhaustion, minor cases of collapse, especially 
after the race, the very best thing I know of is cham- 
pagne. I notice in recent volumes of African travel 
that when the explorers have been brought to a stand- 
still, they all vaunt the magical effect of champagne. 
After the event, then, some little champagne can be 
taken ; in fact, I endorse its use as a restorative. 

Occasionally, but not always, just before going to bed 
men may be hungry. It is perfectly well known that 
hungry men never sleep well. If there is anything I do 
want, it is that men going to bed shall sleep like logs. 



TRAINING. 189 

A crust of stale bread and a tumbler of milk will often 
then be found of great advantage. I may say there is a 
stupid prejudice against milk, which arises entirely from 
ignorance. Milk holds in solution all the substances of 
beef or mutton. I do not want to make men work on 
infants' food, but a little milk does good. I believe in 
giving it at night before men go to bed, and its use is of 
advantage early in the morning. It sustains while the 
work of early morning goes on, before a regular meal, 
and at night it arrests that hunger which disturbs sleep. 

There is nothing easier than for a man to accustom 
himself to cutting down the bulk of the fluids he uses. 
The drinking of very cold water is the one thing that 
helps more than anything else to bring on dyspepsia. 
There can be no greater arrester of digestion than ice- 
cold water. Remember that all you have swallowed has 
to be brought up to blood-heat before digestion can 
take place. The solid food you have eaten is influenced 
by the cold water you drink. Until it gets up to the 
general body temperature, normal functioning stops. 
To warm it up you must expend much vital energy. 

There must be no smoking nor chewing. For the 
man in training, Cuba, North Carolina, Virginia, and 
Kentucky might have remained undiscovered coun- 
tries. 

I need not advise against the use of medicine of any 
kind during training. If a man is ill he must acquaint 
his trainer with his condition at once, .who, if he be 
wise, will send for a doctor. I have before warned men 



190 TRAINING. 

about dosing themselves, or being dosed, before train- 
ing. This habit arose because in the past, athletic exer- 
cises were mainly carried on by men who had no con- 
trol over their appetites. With gross and coarse men 
inclined to drinking and debauchery, it became a neces- 
sity when they were trained to wrench them, physically 
and mentally, from their prior unfortunate conditions. 
Hence the purpose of a ^* black draught,'' as Morrissey 
advises. 

Utter abstemiousness from liquor was promulgated 
from these former unfortunate conditions. This was in 
the time when there wore no amateur athletes. *^ Rule 
of thumb '' often exerts its sway ; and methods of train- 
ing have in some cases been continued which have no 
good reasons for their existence to-day. 

The twenty-four hours may be divided into the two 
parts of sleep and work. Sleep and the preparation 
for it not being less than nine hours, there remain fifteen 
hours. This cannot be used for work entirely. Now, 
there is the widest latitude given in various systems of 
training, as to the time which should be devoted to 
work. Much depends on the original condition of a 
crew. The greatest amount of work any men who are 
to work in a boat can stand with profit, is four hours. 
Beyond that there is no advantage. I am very positive 
that four hours is excess of work, and inclined to make 
men stale. I think three hours in a boat is ample. If 
in the three weeks', or even six weeks' training, a man 
has not by that time learned how to acquire skill with 



TRAINING. 191 

his oar, he is the duffer— better out of the boat than 
in it. 

The question a trainer must ask himself is this : " Am 
I working these men for skill or for strength?*' It is 
supposable that both skill and strength do come by prac- 
tice, but rarely in equal proportions. With the fine mate- 
rial at hand, the condition of the men being favorable, 
and giving them credit for intelligence, I think that under 
such care as they receive, strength comes more readily 
than skill. To acquire all the points, it takes more 
time than the six weeks or two months usually given to 
getting the men ready. I should advise then with a 
good, strong crew, to bring them up early to their con- 
dition. But here is the rub, and it is to keep them there. 
It always is difficult to have precision of stroke without 
some loss of power. It is not a question of how fast 
men can go, as how steady they can work. Put on the 
speed then slowly. The time must come, however, when 
about what is the speed the men can make has to be 
known. About four days before the race the course 
must be covered at the best time. After that, work of 
this kind ceases, otherwise the crew are likely to become 
"stale." 

Here comes in something in regard to which the best 
and most observant of trainers, coachers, or coxswains 
are at sea. Say the course has been run on a trial on 
satisfactory time. Will the crew repeat the time, or 
will they do better ? I have made many mistakes about 
this. As often as not the time of the actual event has 



192 TRAINING. 

been slower than the trial. Occasionally, but not often, 
very much better. I think on race days some men dis- 
play a nervous energy which is amazing ; while others, 
with something akin to mental disturbance, fail in every 
way. Sometimes the advice is given to feed sparingly 
the day before the race. I think this advice to be hurt- 
ful. On race day I would watch more closely than at 
any other time the dietary of the crew. If the race is 
in the afternoon, I would make no particle of difference, 
only as to quality. If it be at midday I even want the 
men to eat a good, hearty breakfast. 

This general idea of training for boating has its bear- 
ing on getting men into condition for almost any kind 
of exercise. It is not special to boating. 

I use the scales, but not every day. I must know a 
man's weight at the start. If he be over-fat I expect 
him to lose some of it. I am uneasy if the fat man 
goes aw^ay too fast and keeps going. Men of moderate 
build I expect to weigh a little more before I am through 
with them. Not that they have gained fat. They have 
gotten rid of it. They have taken on muscle and con- 
densed their bones. Why should empirical laws be given 
about these things ? The way to increase and diminish a 
man*s weight depends upon work. I can reduce a man 
until I kill him. 

I am not prepared to say what shall be the perfect 
weight of a man of 5 feet 6, or of a man of 6 feet. It 
varies according to conditions. Take boat crews that 
make their records, and their total averages differ a 



TRAINING. 193 

great deal. There is no rule which gives me the infalli- 
ble *^ tip '' of weights and winners. With the horse the 
added weights tell, but not with the man, for he ougnt 
never to be handicapped in that way. In the record of 
any season, not of this year alone, but of the past, it 
will be seen how weights of men vary as to size. I 
do know that a crew of dwarfs could not win, and I am 
almost as certain that a crew of giants would find them- 
selves nowhere with men of normal size. 

When two oars are used by the man, the exact amount 
of work done is by no means greater than when both 
arms are applied to the single oar. In many respects, 
however, sculling has certain advantages. The sculler 
is his own master and can regulate his own method. 
He is not necessarily subservient to the command of 
another, and is not forcedly automatic. Though in the 
race he must exert himself to the utmost, he has his 
own methods of relief. How to make slight changes of 
position — these acquired by long practice — is one of the 
arts of sculling. If not as automatic as were he one of 
a crew, the sculler has to exercise more judgment and 
has to call on his mental powers. It must not be under- 
stood that the power of thinking is in antagonism to 
muscular movement. The work being then less monot- 
onous than in pulling with a crew, the sculler has some 
advantages considered here only as motive power. The 
command of himself does not, however, always tend to- 
ward his benefit. Pretty generally amateurs lose races 
through their own want of judgment. Want of control 



194 TRAINING. 

makes them overtax their energies at the beginning, 
and they are spent when three-quarters of the course is 
rowed. 

The question of training is of all importance in scull- 
ing. I am of the opinion that in the carrying out of 
all the work of the athlete there is nothing that tells as 
much on sculling as condition, and the worst thing is to 
train down too fine. In the delicately constructed boat 
of to-day, fractions of inches lower or higher in the set 
of the craft in the water makes differences of feet in the 
progress of the race ; but that is of secondary importance 
to the status of the sculler. 

I would rather have a man a little over-weight from 
his training, if he is to pull a pair of oars, than too light. 
There are so many collapses brought about from having 
a man '' stale '' before he begins serious work. 

A sculler ought to take his own time under favorable 
and unfavorable circumstances and so get his average. 
I should not care for his trying to do his very best but 
once during his actual training, and then, if possible, 
four or five days before the event comes off. This is 
something not so easy to carry out, for the surface of 
the water is rarely exactly the same. A lumpy river is 
much harder to overcome than a heavy track. Let him 
take, then, if he can hit on it, the most favorable condi- 
tions for his own particular trial. As he never ought to 
be without friends, these ought to consider what are the 
exact directions of the wind and tides, which may vary 
every fifteen minutes, and so correct his time. 




From The Illustrated American. Copyright, 1890, by lU'd American Pub. Co 

GEO. R. GRAY. PUTTING THE i6lB. SHOT. 



TRAINING. 195 

Brute force will win an occasional race, but the major- 
ity of the scullers* triumphs are due more to skill than 
sheer strength. 

From using both arms equally, the general develop- 
ment of the sculler is better than that of the single 
oarsman. I have rarely seen a sculler who had not a 
fine chest, but with Mr. William Blaikie, I, too, have 
noticed more than one who, good at the single oar, had 
chests which were unmistakably poor. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

WORK FOR HEAVY MEN. 

When a man can show a 39 or 40-inch chest, and a 
15-inch biceps, and will scale from 180 to 200 pounds, 
then let him go in for such heavy work as putting the 
shot, throwing the hammer, and the tug of war. Men 




THROWING THE HEAVY HAMMER. 



who are up in gymnastic work generally know what are 
their limitations. Physical build determines the selec- 
tion of the things to be done. 

As I have before explained it, Nature says early, this 

lad when he grows to be a man will be a sprinter ; that 
(196) 



TRAINING. 



197 



other one will be a mighty putter of weights, or the " an- 
chor*' of the tug of war. 

Endurance has some little to do with the making of 
men who gain merited renown as heavers of hammers, 
but like in the jumper, it is the intensity of muscular de- 
velopment called upon at a certain time to come to the 
front, and to carry out some prodigious effort, which 
tells. No man can do any of these heavy tasks who is 
not mature. Strength is one thing, actual weight of 
the man who throws the hammer, or puts the shot some- 
thing more, and skill counts for a 
good deal. These want for their 
proper management " big and bra* 
men.** No stripling in his teens who 
trips like a deer over the turf, can 
stand a chance against these adult 
human catapults. When a man has 
to take a hickory or oak stave, 
capped with a 1 6-pound mass of 
iron, and send it over 90 feet, the 
force, the skill of the performance 
can be appreciated. A hot ball shot in by a fielder has 
its merits, but what of the weight of this mass of iron, 
as it comes like a skyrocket through the air ? 

There is more knack, probably, in hammer throwing 
than in putting the 56-pound weight, but as to main 
strength, both these performances call on the athlete to 
have an abundant stock of it. No one would suppose 
for a moment that there was anything like a correlation 




From Harper's Young People. 
Copyrit;ht, 1888, by Harper A Bro*. 

PUTTING THE WEIGHT. 



198 TRAINING. 

of action between the high jumper and the hammer 
thrower, but in a physiological sense there are close 
resemblances. To clear 6 feet 4 inches from the ground, 
or to throw a 16-pound hammer 123 feet 6^ inches, re- 
quire that every muscle in the man shall tend toward 
the accomplishment of these two feats. It is because 
the hammer thrower or shot putter has the help of his 
heavier avoirdupois, that he puts that, plus his superb 
muscular development, all into the mass of iron. The re- 
sultant is the propulsion of the iron to its last inch. 

When the man jumps, it is his own body that he cares 
for. He is lighter in proportion as to weight, but his 
muscles are all-powerful. That represents, as far I can 
make it out, the reasons for the differences of build in 
the kinds of men. 

The heave is a fairly prolonged act. The man gets 
the swing by turning on himself. Every muscle, from 
his neck down to his toes, extending to the tips of his 
fingers, performs its duty. I have been sometimes 
told that '* elasticity of muscle was quite unnecessary on 
the part of the shot thrower.'' This I deny. The least 
stiffness shown by the shot thrower would check move- 
ment. No one can refine on this muscular play, and it 
is nonsense to tell me, ^' that it is not necessary for the 
heaver of the shot that his muscles should move quick- 
ly. '* This is assuming a knowledge of muscular devel- 
opment not discoverable in the scientific study of the 
subject. I grant that the physical education of the man is 
such that rapidity of movement does not seem necessary, 



TRAINING. 



199 



and yet here is the mistake. If anybody supposes that 
the champion hammer thrower is as deliberate in his 
movement, as is a languid young lady plying her fan, 
he is very much mistaken. The character of the perform- 
ance precludes such an idea. Centrifugal motion has 
for its one element that of speed. A slowly revolving 
wheel never does fly off its centre. 
Rapid circular movement takes, 
when interrupted, the tangential line. 
The muscles move as quickly as 
they can, and the hammer and its 
handle spin in the air, if not as fast 
as a drum-major*s baton, at least 
with great speed. Some men may 
have a slower action than others, 
but it is generally conceded with 
adepts throwing heavy weights that 
it is best accomplished when celerity 
is used. '^ I can be so slow,'' said 
to me a champion, '^ that in the 
preparation of putting the weight 
I can use up and waste force. It 
is like slow burning powder ; too 
much fizzle about it. I know what is meant by overcoming 
the inertia of a thing. At the very instant I clutch the 
hammer handle or the weight, I do not use much exer- 
tion, but I try and accelerate motion after that. I 
throw with a gradual increase of movement, otherwise I 
never could get distance. Now, do not understand that 




POSITION FOR SIDE THROW 
56-POUND WEIGHT.— LEFT- 
HANDED THROWER. 



200 TRAINING. 

there is not a limit as to speed. If I were twice as 
strong as I really am, I might be able to put in a more 
rapid motion, and at the same time not lose control, 
but being only an ordinary man, I regulate my speed to 
my power, but it's quick. I never have had to watch 
out for my leg development. They always seemed to 
take care of themselves ; I do not, of course, pretend 




PUTTING THE 16-POUND SHOT. 



that my make is the same as other men. Where I have 
worked hardest was toward the development of the 
muscles of my abdomen, waist, and back. If you ever 
write about this particular line of work, which is not 
well understood, tell your readers that it is all nonsense 
that a weight heaver is not a supple man. He must be 



TRAINING. 20I 

limber, or he becomes jammed up at once. I am not 
more in love with my specialty than with any other. I 
sometimes think that I would rather have made a record 
in other directions, but this I am positive about, that it 
takes a man sound to the core to gain proficiency in 
hammer throwing. The extra inches that tell come 
from hard work, constant practice, and a limber back. 
Don't forget the limber back. General all-around devel- 
opment is what I try to get at, with special pains to ap- 
proach to the supple spine the cat has.'* 

Of the two, hammer or weight throwing, I prefer the 
first, for though there is art in both exercises, the first 
calls skill more into play. The development of the 
man is, too, generally better. As to style, it does not 
enter into the province of this work to expatiate on it. 
When a man throws the hammer, and does it well, there 
is nothing awkward about it. With art he hides the 
difificulties of the performance. To train for weight 
throwing or hammer putting, the preparation must be 
perfect. Though but a few seconds of a minute is all 
the time necessary to make a record, this only can be 
obtained after months of hard work. 

Beginning with exercise in the gymnasium of a gen- 
eral character, particular attention is to be given to 
such work as will increase and strengthen the muscles 
of the back and waist. Waist muscles, I think, are 
built up rather slowly, and so progress maybe apparent- 
ly tardy. I have found for the biceps that the wheel 
was invaluable. There is an upward movement of 



202 ' TRAINING. 

the forearm which is called upon when a weight is to 
be thrown, which under other circumstances is not 
often worked. I would, of course, keep up the legs, 
but not give them additional duty. They take care of 
themselves. 

As to diet, it should be generous. Big men really do 
not eat any more than those of sparer build, but I think 
their inclination for drink increases. Now, a little com- 
mon sense here is worth more than any quantity of 
theory. If I have a small lot of ground to water, I fill 
my watering-pot once, and that suffices. But the same 
" quantity of water will not do for a garden bed twice the 
size of the first one. A big man has more area to sup- 
ply with water, and consequently wants more, and then, 
too, with increase of surface, he must have a broader 
evaporation. It stands to reason he requires more water 
than a thin man, and the bigger bulk ought to get it. 

A man begins with the weight he wants to throw, 
but restricts himself as to distance. Gradually he ap- 
proaches near to his best, always restraining his powers. 
I know of no exercise which calls forth more patience 
than hammer throwing or weight throwing, nor one 
which brings with it less hope of success at the first. 
Strength acquired by good training does tell in the end, 
and skill is acquired. Do not attempt to lose bulk. I 
should advise constant use of the scales for this special 
exercise. If the diminution is too rapid, slacken off the 
work. 

Hammer and weight throwing is the work cut out for 



. TRAINING. 203 

big men. A 200-pound man is really not a heavy man 
for the exercise. A noted champion will stand 5 feet 9 
and weigh 210 pounds, and such tremendous propor- 
tions as 6 feet 4f , and 240 pounds are claimed for the 
giants. I know j\o limit of time to be cited as fixing 
the period of training. I am inclined to believe that 
it must be continued over a long period of years before 
perfection comes. PubHc taste does not run toward 
mountains of flesh, but no one can become a weight 
thrower who is not built for it, and then, in addition, 
has improved natural conditions, by constant and judi- 
cious training. 

THE TUG OF WAR. 

As to the status of the men for the tug of war, the 
conditions do not vary a great deal from those of the 
weight throwers. A team of four of 700 pounds is none 
too heavy; a 635 one is rather too light. I think the 
resistance of natural dead weight helps. 

There has been some inclination on the part of Amer- 
ican athletic associations to give rather the cold shoulder 
to the tug of war, as it has been alleged that men are 
often hurt in such contests. If I were asked my opinion 
about it, I should very certainly join with those who do 
not encourage the tug of war. I might even incline 
toward its abolishment. I have always thought that 
athletes giving themselves entirely to this contest, were 
men wasted. I have known men who were very badly 
hurt in the tug of war. The strength of the chain de- 
pending on its weakest link, I have seen this weak link 



204 



TRAINING. 



break, and that breakage was a bad internal lesion. 
The reasons why it is dangerous is because, differing 
from a boat crew, where if a man in eight or six does 
cave in, his boat loses; he himself is only for the 
moment discomfited. In the tug of war, the strain 
being on the four men, and not on the apparatus (the 
boat), one man may suffer. Professing to show what 
are the advantages to be derived from manly exercises, 




TUG OF WAR— OLD STYLE. 



I see nothing that is good in the tug of war, and I be- 
lieve that I am not singular in this respect. 

Picking out the athletic associations in the United 
States who have crews who make the tug of war their 
specialty, the individual improvement in a physical 
sense, of such members, is generally null. I am not pre- 
pared to make the statement that the condition of the 
men had been lowered, but from such information as 
has been furnished me, it looks as if the loss were great- 
er than the gain. I know there are exceptions, and 
men who have been of the tug of war have improved, 
but there are sometimes exceptions to rules. Is the 



TRAINING. 205 

tug of war worth a rupture ? In the older ways of pre- 
paring the ground for the pull, there was less danger 
to the men than there is now. To-day the idea is ad- 
vanced that with the later appliances there is no danger. 
Cleats, I think, rather increase chances of hurt. If this 
contest must be continued, I like better the old method 
of work, which was of man to man. Then the personal 
skill of the one athlete is more quickly perceptible, and 
risks diminished. 

I should never allow the tug of war to be tried in any 
gymnasium under my control, and until its advantages 




A FULLY EQUIPPED TEAM ON CLEATS. 

are more clearly defined, I never would. If there has 
been a revival of this so-called pastime during the last 
few years, the same reasons that took it out of the list 
of athletic performances in the past continue. As the 
mechanism has become more complicated, danger to 
the men has not been diminished. In a physiological 
sense, looking only at conditions arising from the tug of 
war, I am certain that nothing could be imagined which 
is worse. 

It wears out muscle by strain, and continued strain, 
with no chances of recovery. I may be brought to task 
for this opinion, but I honestly believe it blunts a man's 



2o6 TRAINING. 

power of thought ; for it does happen that when the 
muscles are overworked, the brain power wanes. It 
may be seen that, if mental advantages are credited to 
some exercises, to others disadvantages are to be noted. 
To train a man for the tug of war, the conditions are 
the same as for putting the hammer. The men must be 
mature. Anything like stinting them is impossible. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

TRAINING FOR BOXING. 

Absolute perfection of form is a necessity for those 
who would excel in boxing. Of all athletic exercises it 





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requires more care to make a man proficient in this 
special calling than in any other. It is the work which 
wants a man to be in his absolute maturity. He must 

(207) 



2o8 TRAINING. 

have not only great muscular strength, but agility and en- 
durance. That peculiar excellence of the athlete known 
as ** wind '' is wanted, for it is called on to its utmost by 
the boxer. The brain stimulant in regard to which I 
have so frequently commented, must always give its 
force to the pugilist. 

Two years of active gymnasium work are none too 
little for the man of i8 or 19 who wants at 20 or 21 to 
put on the gloves, and though he may work but little on 
the track, it is in running that he will best acquire that 
automatic lung power which is so necessary, for without 
having the fullest capacity to breathe, no man is worth 
anything. All those exercises which incline toward in- 
creasing the strength of the arms must be cared for. It 
is not sufficient to be a heavy hitter, but a man must be 
a quick one. It is the rapidity of the recovery, the 
alertness of a man's legs, the ability to escape a blow 
that is effective. 

Perfection of condition best resists the effects of 
blows. You can hardly bruise a man, though you may 
fell him, if his muscular condition is excellent. In the 
very highly-developed condition of the prize-fighter, 
though doggedness goes for a great deal, real pain has 
less effect on the individual. How otherwise account 
for a man with a broken arm still standing up and fight- 
ing to the last ? 

In absolute training, unless a man be very gross, when 
he may lose some flesh, working a man down from his 
weight is to be deprecated. If a man is sound, I would 



TRAINING. 209 

rather he had gained two pounds than to lose one. It 
is not fat nor pulpy flesh he has put on, but muscle. 
The utmost care as to diet must be observed, and the 
same rules are to be adopted as for boating men. Smok- 
ing is to be absolutely prohibited. Exercise should be 
evenly distributed, and never much of it before break- 
fast. It is before the midday meal that a fair amount 
of work is to be done. Walking, and a little running, 
are the great helps to making a sound wind. I never 
advise swimming, for the reason that the exact amount 
of strength it requires is not well ascertained. 

A man in training for boxing must work with dumb- 
bells and Indian clubs, but with not too heavy ones. I 
believe, too, in doing what is often neglected, and that is, 
vaulting and trying to fit the man for vaulting from right 
to left, and from left to right. I find too many men sadly 
deficient in the muscles of their waist, and neglectful of 
those exercises which would supply them. A certain 
rigidity of form is acquired from the position assumed in 
boxing. I have seen good boxers with a bad stoop. 

The use of the bag has been the great improvement 
in the training of the boxer. A quarter of an hour 
wdth a heavy bag gives a man muscular power, with 
that rapidity which is so necessary. Learn not only to 
strike the ball with one, but with both hands, and what 
is more, try and dodge the ball, and as it swings over 
you, how to turn and strike it. 

Including all the various exercises, with the mile walk, 
three hours a day of active work with the ball, and spar- 



2IO TRAINING. 

ring with a master, is amply sufficient. It is only a very 
choice man who would not suffer from a moment's longer 
work than this. The trouble of the trainer is in getting 
his pupil exactly ^' ripe.'' Work, then, should be allotted 
in just such a way that anything like staleness should 
be prevented. Attention to bathing and rubbing down 
is of the utmost importance in training for boxing. 

I want in the first place a very strong man, and I 
want to keep him up to the highest notch of muscular- 
ity all the time. How much agility has to do with 
prowess in pugilism the professors can tell, for a lum- 
bering giant has really but little chance on the platform. 
The man who is the glutton is rarely the champion. It 
need not be said that the art of pugilism is to give more 
than you take, but to do that skill is necessary, and to 
be awkward means to be wanting in nimbleness. In 
six weeks a man should be in good condition for boxing, 
providing always he has had some years of gymnasium 
before that. A good boxer must be a good all-around 
man. 

For those with a decided taste toward boxing, I would 
advise such exercise as is found in the game of rackets. 
This fine sport it will be found teaches rapid improve- 
ment. I know of nothing which requires greater quick- 
ness of motion, with moderate display of force, than the 
game of rackets. A man has to be on the alert, and 
have precision of eye, in order to play well. I have 
found that rackets, for improving wind and for reducing 
unnecessary fat, had many advantages. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

TRAINING FOR WRESTLING. 

When in romance literature I have read descriptions 
of wrestling matches, where " the lithe and sinuous man 
wound himself like a serpent around his burly adver- 
sary/' I have always been satisfied that the gifted writer 
had never seen a wrestling match. 

The conformation of a man to be a wrestler must 
incline him toward 
bulk. The greatest 
WTestler of modern 
times stood 6 feet 
i^ inches, and 
weighed 280 pounds. 
I do not mean that 
he should be a moun- 
tain of flesh, like a 
J apanese wrestler, ' 

1 , I 1 AN UNDER HEAVE. 

but he must have 

that weight which tells, and united to that, great mus- 
cular power and endurance, for to be a good wrestler 
calls upon the man to use his utmost efforts. 

I am well aware that to be well up in the " chips '' which 
make Cornish and Devon men such dangerous adver- 
saries, skill is an important factor ; but holding wrestling 

(211) 




212 TRAINING. 

only as an exercise, three-quarters of it is main strength. 
If boxing is a performance which calls for a thoroughly 
good all-around man, so does wrestling. Any flaw in 
the make or condition of the wrestler tells against him. 
I know of nothing where brute strength is so important. 
As often as not wrestling is a test of endurance. Two 
men locked together strive for mastery. Apparently 
they are motionless, but every muscle in their bodies is 
exerted to their utmost capability. Then comes for 
one or the other inclination toward physical weakening, 
and at once the better man gains the supremacy. I 
eliminate here the skill of the wrestler for the moment, 
but still I am satisfied that it is pure muscular force, 
with the capability of storing it up, which gives the 
wrestler his efficiency. 

I know of no illustration which serves my purpose bet- 
ter than does wrestling, in order to show how an apparent- 
ly motionless exercise produces the most marked effects 
on those who take part in it. The movements are but 
slight to the eye, but every muscle is doing its best. 
As a competent authority expresses it, " under the great 
pressure occasioned by their athletic effort, the larger 
vessels have been distended until they have momentarily 
lost power of recoil.'' Compression of the heart and 
lungs necessarily follows, and difficulties of respiration 
increase. There is more or less congestion. It is the 
panting, breathless condition of the men which makes 
this at once apparent. This congested state must arise, 
too, from the fact that muscular action is carried on with- 



TRAINING. 213 

out movement, and just this brings on additional exhaus- 
tion. If wrestling were without any movement at all, 
the congestive tendency would soon incapacitate men, 
but quick as a flash comes the brief period of activity, 
the man is thrown into the air, or doubled over, and the 
period of high tension is past. 

I may not hold wrestling as among the highest of 
athletic performances, and yet it calls upon the two 
most important factors, that of human endurance and 
of the supreme effort. 

Only a grown man should wrestle. It is a sport un- 
fitted for boys. Taking for build, the man who is fitted 
for a hammer thrower, continued work at the gymna- 
sium is a necessity. There are muscles, especially those 
of the neck, which must be cultivated. If you look at 
a wrestler with a reputation, you will see how, by work, 
these peculiar muscles have been so exercised that they 
sometimes apparently deform the neck. As a fall may 
be claimed when the middle of the back touches the 
ground, wrestlers to prevent this so arch their bodies as 
to prevent their backs from touching the ground. This is 
accomplished by curving the neck in a fall, and support- 
ing the body on the heels and the back of the head. 
In this position, unless an adversary has prodigious 
strength, a telling fall becomes impossible. 

In matters of diet, the same regimen should be fol- 
lowed as in training for boxing. Anything like stinting 
food is dangerous. A wrestler after training ought not 
to have lost an ounce. I would rather he had increased 



214 TRAINING. 

in bulk. Walking, with a little running, is necessary ; 
for it is the wind, the automatic respiration, which tells 
so much in wrestling. 

Wrestling, save as a secondary performance, has never 
been encouraged by our leading American athletic so- 
cieties. The reason why this happens, arises in part 
from the fact that as carried out by professionals, wrest- 
ling has been degraded. The profession has introduced 
into wrestling certain cruel methods the public are little 
aware of. It is possible for a man to get such a hold on 
his adversary's arm or leg as to be able to break it. Hav- 
ing him in this position, the threat is made : " If you 
do not acknowledge a fall, I will break your arm or leg.*' 
We see no good reason why wrestling should be put on 
the records. Lately a leading English authority urges 
on amateurs the revival of wrestling, and this statement 
is made, " that the chief enemies of the art are often 
those who should be most in favor of it, the schoolmas- 
ters and the instructors in gymnasiums.'* The reason 
why such instructors oppose wrestling is the proper 
dread (not *^ the exaggerated dread '') of broken bones. 
I may not have seen so many broken bones arising from 
wrestling bouts as I have lesions and ruptures. 

If I want to get rid of stiffness and awkwardness, 
there are many better ways of doing that than by means 
of wrestling. 

In examining the records, I certainly find more seri- 
ous accidents arising to professionals from wrestling than 
from pugilism. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

TRAINING FOR LONG DISTANCE WORK. 

It will take all of six weeks for a man to prepare him- 
self for any long distance work. Exercise should be 
steady all the time, long distances being left for the 
last two weeks of training. The best men all begin 
with the use of dumb-bells and clubs. As all gaits are 
permissible, a steady runner has great advantages. After 
bursts of speed, he is enabled to take up a fast walk and 
so relieve the strain on particular muscles. 

Diet should be careful as to quality, and taken with- 
out stint. Frequent bathing and rubbing down help 
the condition of the athlete. The feet for long distance 
work are sources of trouble, and great attention should 
be paid to them. 

In a physiological sense, it would look as if long dis- 
tance going w^ere the greatest strain that could be put 
on a man. This, however, when a man is perfectly 
sound, is not found to be the case. The reason why he 
is able to stand up against such excessive work, arises 
from the fact that he is not held down to one particular 
gait. 

No exercise calls for greater precautions on the part 
of the trainer than for long distance work. Attention 

(215) 



2l6 TRAINING. 

to the man who is at work should be continuous. Dur- 
ing the performance food should be varied as to kind, 
and the inclinations of the individual followed, but al- 
ways within the rule of giving him such aliments as are 
most readily digestible. I am quite satisfied that during 
the last thirty-six hours of long distance covering, train- 
ers do administer champagne. I think the quantity did 
not exceed a half tumbler, and that only repeated three 
times. 

If men working at long distances could carry on their 
performances in the open air, there is no question but 
that additional miles would be added to their scores, 
and for this reason : forced to sleep in the buildings 
where their exercises take place, the air they breathe is 
in a measure vitiated, and the recuperative process 
hampered. After the work is over a long period of 
rest is a necessity, for reasons before explained. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

EXERCISE FOR YOUNG MEN WHO HAVE NEVER BEEN AT 
A GYMNASIUM. 

If a young man has leisure the early walk is 

everything. Even providing a young man never has 

worked in a gymnasium, he ought to know how to 

walk, and to walk is not to slouch. He should take a 

brisk spell, beginning slowly, and putting in every now 

and then a spurt. It may not be possible, however, 

from bad weather, to take this early walk. As often as 

not there is no time, then exercises at home are in 

order. Take the dumb-bells and use them for fully 

fifteen minutes. The more movements you have at 

your command the better. All the lateral movements 

of the dumb-bells are excellent, especially those which 

call into play the muscles of the waist, for in ordinary 

life it is these and the abdominal muscles which are 

neglected. 

Never tire yourself if you can help it. Exercise must 

depend somewhat on occupation. It is, however, the 

use of the legs which tends more than anything else to 

keep a young man in good form. If you can spare the 

time, walk to your place of business, even if you live 

four miles from your office. Try and do that much, 

weather permitting, at least once a day. Early in the 

(217) 



2l8 TRAINING. 

morning, when streets are unincumbered, it is wonderful 
how quickly four miles can be covered. Young men in 
business have more time for physical work of an evening. 
Before going to bed, ten minutes of dumb-bell work, 
carried out more leisurely than in the morning, will 
complete the day's work and insure sound sleep. 

A man has not, however, exercised who has not walked 
his four miles in the twenty-four hours. There are many 
who, in the general round of their duties, accomplish 
more than this, but the methods used and the rests 
taken spoil the walking as an exercise. 

I am very much in favor of dumb-bells, but not so 
much of weight-pulling for young men who only want 
to keep in ordinary training. A plentiful use of water 
naturally helps physical conditions. 

EXERCISE FOR MEN PAST MIDDLE LIFE. 

I should say walking is the panacea for half the ills 
men in the latter days of their lives suffer from. Meth- 
ods of locomotion, such as are procurable in all large 
cities, economize time, and shorten life. A business 
man may not be able to spend an hour in walking in 
order to reach his ofifice. Let him ride half way, then, 
and walk the other half. A half-hour walk in a day is 
very little, perhaps barely suflficient. 

I have a case in point of a business man who believed 
he had no time to walk. He adopted, however, the 
half-time method as a kind of solemn duty. After two 
weeks* walking he found himself so much improved, that 



TRAINING. 219 

in time he walked the whole distance from his home to 
his place of business. At once the benefits of exercise 
became evident. After a while, walking away, he cut 
down his record, and it was amusing to hear a man of 
fifty-five, in the crowded city streets, express his pleasure 
at having made his four miles inside of the hour. 

If a man of fifty or past that, has a horse, riding is 
among the best of exercises. Generally in our climate 
it is the liver that goes wrong, and the movement of 
the horse stimulates the hepatic functions. For men of 
sedentary habits there is nothing, then, like a horse. 
Dumb-bells are good for men past the half century, but 
should be used with moderation. Men of a certain age 
lose much of their spring and elasticity, and so I have 
little inclination to have them use any mechanical ad- 
juncts. If exercise is to be taken, it ought to be carried 
out in the morning on rising. For the man of fifty, five 
minutes of dumb-bell exercise is sufficient. When there 
is the least indication of heart trouble, anything like 
violent exercise should never be indulged in. I find in 
studying the best authorities on this subject, that the 
man of fifty is invariably supposed to be normal, whereas 
in too many cases he is not. 

Advice as to using the striking-bag for men of fifty or 
past, I should oppose. I do not think that one city 
man in five hundred should attempt it. I should rather 
he played billiards. Something I strongly advise for 
men who, with age, take on stomach, is an exercise 
which is purely local. In some respects it is singular of 



220 TRAINING. 

its kind. It is to work the muscles of the abdomen. 
By a pecuHar movement, easily acquired, the muscles of 
the abdomen are rolled over themselves, and there be- 
ing no muscular action possible, without disintegration, 
some of the fat of the abdomen is removed. 

I have known decrease of abdominal fat become plainly 
evident by means of this muscular abdominal movement, 
with improvement of the digestive functions. The move- 
ment may be made up and down, and down and up. It is 
an exercise which old age requires, because it brings into 
play those muscles which in constant use in former days, 
with increasing years are neglected. I unhesitatingly 
recommend this movement for both men and women, 
and am positive that the benefits derivable from this 
exercise are very great. Begin by exercising these abdom- 
inal muscles for one minute, then stop for the day. The 
limit of such exercise should never exceed five minutes. 
People who are of spare habits, without tendency to 
corpulency, will find improved digestion by this exercise. 

After all, it is walking which is the natural exercise 
for those who are past their prime. Men who in their 
younger lives have used the gymnasium, still have capa- 
bilities at fifty, and because they were trained to stand 
fatigue in their early days, they suffer no inconveniences. 

It is walking which saves more men's lives than any- 
thing else. In certain portions of our country an ex- 
tended walk is not always possible. It may be too hot 
or too cold. But still advantage should be taken of 
temperate weather. 



TRAINING. 221 

Many business men who have means beheve they find 
recreation and exercise in driving. Recreation they cer- 
tainly get, but with a minimum of exercise. If horses 
are speedy, then skill on the part of the driver is a 
necessity. Attention to horses must be constant. The 
man is only exchanging his powers of thinking from 
his business to his horses. This is a mental advantage, 
but it is nothing more. In pulling at the reins, if the 
horses are not well broken, the character of the work is 
absolutely hurtful. Driving has none of the advantages 
of riding. Secretaries of State, in Washington, who are 
generally hard-worked men, find riding to be of the 
greatest advantage to them. An hour or two on horse- 
back is all they require, and in this special exercise they 
follow the wise example of English Cabinet officers. 
Care should be taken on the part of the writer of any 
book in which advice as to exercise is given to men of a 
certain age, because questions of food enter very much 
into particular conditions. 

With the adult I have tried to show all the salient 
facts in regard to his diet. Old age is a return, in a 
certain way, to conditions of childhood. The child 
wants food at closer intervals than the adult. The 
child may be wearing himself out, but he is at the same 
time building himself up. The old man's waste may 
not be so rapid, but he does not build himself up. All he 
can hope for, then, is to remain in statu quo. He may 
require, according to his special organization, a certain 
amount of food which varies with the individual, but it 



222 TRAINING. 

stands to reason that he cannot assimilate his nutrients 
as rapidly as when he was young. He should eat less 
at the one meal, or divide his food, as to its consump- 
tion, over a greater time. 

It cannot be questioned but that a man of past fifty 
should eat less of certain things. If the question of 
diet with the athlete has been, we trust, carefully rea- 
soned out, the old man, because he is old, cannot be an 
athlete, and can no longer assimilate the food which was 
necessary for him when he was a younger man. The 
object of this volume is to advise caution under all con- 
ditions of life. An old age is always possible, and one, 
too, comparatively free from bodily suffering when ju- 
dicious exercise is carried out, but with it must be com- 
bined certain dietetic principles. The principles are 
better explained by the physician than by he who teaches 
methods of training. 

I dislike the cockahoop methods of insuring longev- 
ity. All we can say is, that we certainly diminish our 
span of life by want of care. We can lengthen our 
days and make them free from pain by following out 
the natural laws of diet and exercise, but I place exer- 
cise in old age as a necessary but secondary factor ; and 
I am certain that the physiologist is of my way of think- 
ing : that diet in old age is of the greater importance. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

EXERCISE FOR WOMEN. 

Although much has been written applicable to this 
particular subject, L e., the better development of the 
woman, I find but little that is really satisfactory. If 
physical education has not commenced early, when the 
woman was a child, certain confirmed habits have set in, 
and then when later on exercise is tried, it becomes a 
painful duty rather than a pleasure. Physical conditions 
vary with women, and whether they are married or not, 
make all the differences. 

The utmost precautions are necessary when even girls 
of sixteen or past that age are given a course of gym- 
nastic exercises. Were my opinion to be asked, I should 
insist that a woman alone should act as teacher for her 
own sex. 

There are many radical vices of carriage in a woman 
which she herself could correct, which, if corrected, she 
would find added to her comfort. I think it is rather 
rarer for women to stand in the proper position than 
men. Generally, it is the inclination to throw the abdo- 
men forward which tires them. The forward stoop is 
also common. The ordinary setting-up drill, as is in use 
for children, will be found of great advantage in correct- 
ing these faults. 

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224 TRAINING. 

It is in walking that women will find their best exer- 
cise. I never have cared to see anything like exhibitions 
of speed on the part of women, nor yet sluggishness in 
their walk. Women walk quite differently from men, 
and probably have to use more real exertion, due to a 
different form of construction. Their powers of endur- 
ance are apparently less, and therefore not so much in 
the way of pedestrianism is expected of them. Our 
climate, too, with its extremes of heat and cold, renders 
such walking exercise as English women take almost 
impossible. 

We must all be grateful for such a capital exercise as 
is tennis, for it gives our women just that opportunity to 
use their arms and legs which croquet did not afford. 

Any woman, whether a mother or not, can use the 
light dumb-bells to advantage. Exercises with them 
should not be long. Five minutes in the morning and 
the same at night suffice. I never advise the pulling 
of weights, believing them out of place for women. 
Many very extraordinary positions are indicated in the 
books as tending to give strength and elasticity to the 
female form. They are supposed to be special for 
women, though they differ in no respect from those in 
ordinary use for men. Their value may be questioned. 

Riding for women is about the best of exercises. I 
am not so much in favor of rowing, unless precautions 
are taken as to the stretchers on which the woman rests 
her feet. The fault is to have them at too short a dis- 
tance from the seat. It is much better that a woman 



TRAINING. ' 225 

should row entirely with her arms, and depend for no 
additional force from the legs. 

The question of endurance in a woman depends very 
much on her own stimulating powers. She can dance 
all night, because she likes to dance ; and cannot walk 
two miles without complaining of lassitude. In a fairly 
active game of tennis the exercise is by no means slight, 
and yet woman does not suffer. That unknown quan- 
tity, the endurance of the woman, ever escapes us. As 
Dr. Mitchell tells us, " women will take on fat, or lose it, 
and show no differences in vital force." 

What are called calisthenics for women, I have no great 
faith in. It is good for little girls and those in the be- 
ginning of their " teens.** With walking and riding, ten- 
nis and ten-pins, a woman^s repertoire of exercises is 
filled. Bicycling may be indulged in when in a tandem 
machine, but in moderation. Swimming is good exer- 
cise, and better than skating. A billiard table in a house 
affords excellent opportunities for exercise for women, 
and is among the best of home games. 

The difficulty about women who crave exercise, is 
their want of knowledge of just when to stop. The 
least excess does harm. The pleasurable excitement of 
a game of tennis, extended an hour or two more than 
it should be, takes away from the condition of the wom- 
an much more than it has given her. 

The abdominal movements, which I have before de- 
scribed, will be found useful to women. It is impossi- 
ble to carry this on when a woman wears corsets. They 



226 TRAINING. 

must be taken off for this special exercise. Women, 
from the constant application of stays, have little flexi- 
bility of the waist, and just these muscles want relaxing 
through exercise. 

To woman has not been given the muscular activity 
of the man, yet wonderful is her endurance. That her 
physical condition is capable of improvement need not 
be questioned. The methods to be employed must be 
gradual ones. 

That the conditions of the woman are ever changing 
should always be borne in mind. What a woman may 
do to-day, she cannot do to-morrow. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

GYMNASTICS FOR CHILDREN. 

A NORMAL child generally takes about as much exer- 
cise as is good for it, and the endurance of a healthy 
and active lad of eight, is often apparently beyond what 
might be expected of his years. Though he may be 
active, it is quite possible that he shows awkwardness 
in carriage. Such awkwardness often corrects itself nat- 
urally. I am not an advocate of having children put in 
gymnasiums at too early an age. I am inclined to be- 
lieve that any other than the natural exercise a child 
takes is hurtful to him. 

Certain lessons of carriage may be taught a child 
which, because they are not fatiguing, will be found of 
help. The simplest is a modification of that exercise 
called the setting-up drill, such as is used at West Point. 
For the setting-up drill, these changes from the regula- 
tion method are best adapted to children. Teach the 
child to stand straight. This attitude is best acquired by 
having it stretch out its arms straight above the head, 
sometimes bringing together the palms of the hands, 
sometimes the backs of them. This simple drill may be 
varied by having the fingers interlace. The movement 

of the arms upward should be gradual, ending by hav- 

(227) 



228 TRAINING. 

ing the palms or the backs of the hands brought directly 
to the front. When the arms are lowered, the hands 
should be brought invariably down, palms forward, and 
then applied to the sides of the thigh. 

Heads may be raised by having the children look up- 
ward at their hands when they are held with outstretched 
arms above their heads. The feet should be slightly 
turned, and not kept parallel. I would advise not more 
than two minutes of this drill at the beginning, the arms 
to be lifted and lowered, say six times in the two min- 
utes. The time may be increased to ten minutes, but 
not more than that, and with quicker movements. 

The use of light dumb-bells made of wood, not to 
weigh more than one pound each, will help to amuse 
and,, at the same time, straighten out a child. I never 
look for development of strength in such exercises, nor 
care so much for the suppling of the pupil. It is the 
early acquirement of control over the antagonistic mus- 
cles I most want. I have seen, by these simple methods, 
children who stooped badly made perfectly straight. 

One thing always to be borne in mind is this, that 
the work done by children should never be for a long 
time, nor should any movements be made too rapidly. 
The use of light wands, which boys and girls take to 
quickly, gives opportunity for gentle exercise. I like 
wands about a yard long, and they should never weigh 
more than a pound. 

The setting-up drill can be carried out, as to the up 
movements of the arm, with wands, and with them, too, 



TRAINING. 229 

movements of precision are in order. Girls have not 
the muscles of the wrist as strongly developed as boys, 
while girls' fingers are very much more flexible. Wands 
seem to give both boys and girls just what they want. 

At school, it is wise to break in on the monotony of 
study by twenty minutes of such exercises everyday, the 
twenty minutes being divided into equal parts, one car- 
ried out in the morning, one in the afternoon. All 
slovenly movements must be at once corrected. 

Always try and get children to sit straight in their 
chairs, if you can. Unfortunately, many must stoop 
who have defective eyes. Poorly printed school-books 
not only destroy eyes, but backs. 

I do not want a lad under ten to put his foot in a 
gymnasium unless as a spectator. After that age it 
may be time to begin. I do not care that parallel bars 
should be attacked too early. I have found greater 
benefits derivable from the apparatus he takes to natu- 
rally, such as the swinging rings, and even the spring- 
board. Boys like the newer sensations of jumping, sim- 
ply because their legs have always been in some kind of 
training. A lad acquires on the rings, or on the spring- 
board, a better consciousness of his physical limitations. 

Gymnasium exercise, as to duration, depends very 
much on the lad. It is always better to have boys work 
too little than too much at the start. I try to get lads, 
when in the gymnasium for the first time, to work on 
the upright bars ; this relaxes their muscles, but I will 
have no lifting nor pulley business. If the lad is light 



230 TRAINING. 

weight, he has acquired already some cognizance of his 
arm-power on the rings. If heavy-bodied he has an 
acquaintance with the difficulties of overcoming such 
extra weight. It may be four months before I put him 
to the parallel bars. Then I have no objection if even 
he does try the grasshopper movements, for I have 
every reason to believe he is now fairly supple, has lost 
awkwardness, with some little gain of muscularity. 

I want to know all the time the. growth of the young- 
ster. I take monthly measurements of his height, to 
the 32d of an inch, and this is possible by means of a 
nicely adjusted thin and pliable steel bar. I am some- 
what indifferent to the increase of arm or leg develop- 
ments, but I watch the chest closely. I am not satisfied, 
if, the lad being normal, he does not show some little 
growth after the first five months. I have seen cases, 
apparently of arrested growth, suddenly start after the 
first four months of easy gymnastic work, then seeming- 
ly come to a standstill, when harder exercises were com- 
menced. Then natural growth would begin again. 

I have tried to study the question of heredity in lads. 
Often it has happened that the boy at fourteen was nearly 
as tall as his father. Occasionally some extraordinary 
things have occurred under my notice, as lads, the off- 
spring of a man and woman of low stature, suddenly 
starting to grow, and when these lads were young men 
of nineteen they would measure over six feet. They were 
the giants of the family. 

If a lad enters a gymnasium at twelve, and works 



TRAINING. 231 

carefully under judicious treatment, when he is fifteen 
he may be pushed, but never before that age, and then 
only in a few directions. 

And this brings me to the important subject, and 
that is of allowing boys to sprint. I am positive that 
until a lad is past sixteen sprinting is the most danger- 
ous of performances. I have not the least objection to 
a boy's running — you never ought to stop that — but I 
mean by sprinting is to have a lad, by means of train- 
ing, attempt to cover a hundred yards within thirteen 
seconds. I do not care whether it is easy for him to do 
or not. You are taxing that lad beyond his powers. 
He may cover the ground in less than the twelve sec- 
onds, and even in a year or two cut that down, but the 
chances are that you have ruined that boy's health in 
the future. 

When the lad has grown to be a man, all of a sudden 
he develops heart disease, and off he goes. I look at 
sprinting when lads are engaged in it, as nothing short 
of murder. I would rather see a lad run a mile than 
the short 100 or 150 yards. It is the quick, headlong 
burst of speed, as it must be taught, that wrecks imma- 
ture systems. As I have said before, the Society for 
the Prevention of Cruelty to Children should peremp- 
torily stop any exhibition of this kind, and parents 
should forbid their children from sprinting. Sprinting 
is as cruel and in just as bad taste as if a pugilistic 
contest were made up between children, only the con- 
sequences of sprinting are likely to be more serious. 



232 TRAINING. 

I am sorry to believe that there are many executive 
committees of leading athletic clubs who have overlooked 
this matter by allowing undeveloped lads to enter for 
serious contests, not only in foot races, but in bicycle 
matches. It may sound highly creditable, and bring 
applause to a club, to have ** a very young one *' run first 
in a leading event, but if next year or the year after, 
that committee had to attend that young member's 
funeral, some of the club might accuse themselves at 
least of want of care. I do not think bicycle racing for 
young lads brings the same dangers, because the tax on 
the vital system is not so great. The danger of it all 
lies in too rapid work. A man has more self-control 
than a lad, and knows when to stop, whereas a lad 
does not. 

One simple exercise for children consists in their 
standing erect, with the position of the body above the 
waist kept fairly rigid. Place the hands with the arms 
bent, and the palms touching above in the position to 
be assumed in diving, then lower the arms until they 
are on a line with the shoulders. In bringing the hands 
down, let the palms be upward. Begin slowly with chil- 
dren, and let them in time work up the movement more 
rapidly. I have found this expanding the chest and 
modified a tendency to round shoulders. It broadens 
the chest and takes away inclinations to stoop. Five 
minutes of this work is enough at any one time. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

BLISTERS OF THE FEET. 

The sprinter, runner, hurdler, walker, even cyclist will 
have blistered feet occasionally. If he is used to the 
work, this may arise from an ill-fitting shoe or a seam 
in the sock. Sometimes how a blister comes is a mys- 
tery. If the blister be small, relief is often had by tak- 
ing a bit of gummed paper and applying it to the blis- 
ter. If the blister is large, use a needle, never a pin. 
Do not open it in the centre where it is highest, but at 
its lowest side, for then the dead skin will act as a pro- 
tection until the new cuticle is formed. I have found 
benefit from the use of vaseline for tender feet. It is 
much better than soap for the foot. 

This general advice may be given to those who under- 
take any pedestrian exercise where speed is not the ob- 
ject. Shoes must be broad and heels low. A shoe 
with a heel more than an inch in height is not fitted 
for walking. The sole of the shoe ought to be four 
inches in width. I do not believe in a tight fit for the 
toes. There should be room enough for the big toe to 
rise. I have found great benefit, in long walking trips 
(having but one pair of shoes), by the introduction of 
small bunches of horse-hair just at the toes. If any 

(233) 



234 TRAINING. 

one has ever walked down a mountain side, or a long 
slope for some hours, he will notice that the big toe, 
pushing too far forward, is oftentimes bruised. Very 
slight changes in the fit of the shoe, by use of a little 
wad of horse-hair, prevents blistering. 

BOILS AND CARBUNCLES. 

The boil is bad enough for the man of ordinary occu- 
pations, but for he who is in training, it is the most ter- 
rible of visitations. A bone felon is worse, but that is 
hardly a consolation. A man may have to grit his teeth 
and keep somehow along with a boil, but with a bone 
felon, all work necessarily stops. Some romance writers 
have made a man pull and win in a race with a bone 
felon, but that is amateur athletic novel writing. 

I have said, what I believe to be the case, that beer 
drinking induces boils. The most abstemious of men 
are, however, likely to have them. The system is doing 
what it can to eliminate what is foreign to a healthy 
body, and it starts some bad germ, forces it to the front, 
and there is trouble. A man who is in training or his 
trainer should watch out for any little localized form 
of irritation. Pure carbolic acid, applied to the cuticle, 
often checks growth of boils, as does iodine. Poultices 
of bread, of linseed meal, and even the old method of 
using soft soap and sugar, tend to soften the dense skin, 
and allow the boil to come more readily to the surface, 
and so find its discharge. If the knife has to be used, 
and in many cases it is the best thing to do, if the cut 



TRAINING. 235 

surface be treated at once, with boracic or zinc ointment, 
a speedy cure comes. 

Anything that chafes, as a shirt collar, may bring a 
boil on the back of the neck. Men who row are prone 
to boils, caused by the friction of their buttocks on the 
seat of the boat. Such boils are very painful. Some- 
times they entirely incapacitate a man for work. The 
sooner you get rid of them by surgical method the bet- 
ter. Boracic ointment or an ointment made of simple 
cerate and oxide of zinc, spread on a piece of kid glove, 
brings about rapid healing for these boils. For bruises 
I think applications of flannel, steeped in boiling water, 
bring about the quickest relief. When a man bruises 
too readily, or retains the mark of a bruise over long, 
his condition is not good. 

RUPTURE. 
There is but one advice : go instantly to the doctor. 

SPRAINS. 

Good men are subject to sprains. Generally the 
greater number of them happen to the ankle. With 
men in prime condition, such accidents are rarely, if 
ever, serious. The muscle has become used to violent 
tension, but you have tried to stretch it more than it 
could stand. Dr. J. F. Little's treatment is the best I 
know of. Instantly after the trouble is determined, 
stroke the injured part firmly toward the body. You 
must handle as tenderly as possible all the adjacent 



2^6 TRAINING. 

parts. Use an animal oil only, because it facilitates the 
rubbing. Try to flex the limb by massage. The re- 
markable part of this heroic treatment lies in the idea, 
that the limb must be used, so that stiffness shall not 
follow. The trouble about this method is that it is 
rather painful at first. I have, however, seen this method 
employed with wonderful results. If the sprain has not 
been treated instantly, if there has been delay, send for 
a doctor. The quick recovery of men in training from 
sprains is astonishing. To relieve pain from strains, cold 
water is excellent. 

ULCERATION. 

Sometimes, in long distance performances, chafing and, 
finally, ulceration occur. I might modify the ^' some- 
times '* very considerably, by stating that it is rare when 
in a long distance performance men do not chafe, and 
so badly that it is a wonder how they can get along at 
all. Lint, soaked in carbolic oil, one part oil and twenty 
of lint, is excellent. Apply it by means of a bit of 
oiled silk, and bandage carefully. The tighter part of 
the pressure ought to come from below. Change the 
dressing at least twice a day. Use lukewarm water for 
cleansing. When the surface is limited, applications of 
zinc ointment or boracic ointment answer all purposes. 

BLEEDING AT THE NOSE. 

This kind of bleeding will occur at times, and if too 
constant, the man had better stop work for a short 



TRAINING. 237 

time. It is, however, rarely serious. Some very small 
vessel, generally of the nose, has been ruptured. There 
is a method to stop bleeding at the nose, which is often 
effective : It is to stretch out the arms above the head, 
but not to make them too rigid. The reason for it 
may or may not be correct. I give it for what it is 
worth, and it is, that the blood being called on to do 
more work, presents itself at the broken vessel with less 
force, and so hemorrhage ceases. 

SUNSTROKE. 

It has been clearly shown that sunstroke is rather an 
effect of overwork than due to sun action. As sudden 
exhaustion takes place, generally in the daylight when the 
sun shines, the action of the sun is supposed, in a certain 
measure, to produce this comatose condition. It is rare 
in the tropics — more common in the temperate regions. 

Sunstroke ought never to occur on the track. It 
is the part of the trainer to prevent any heavy work 
when the sun is directly over the heads of pupils. Con- 
ditions of the men, especially those at work on a hot or 
oppressive day, should be looked at. Weed out the 
weaker men. It is often wise to peremptorily decline 
work for all hands. I have mortal dread of sunstroke, 
because I firmly believe that if a man has sunstroke, he 
never is as good a man after it, — that is, for athletic ex- 
ercises. , It has premonitory symptoms, such as over- 
dryness of the skin, difficulty of perspiration, and it is 
not unusual to lose distinctness of sight. 



238 ' TRAINING. 

** Things looked rather blurry to me/* I heard a young 
man say, as he came home panting after a sharp two hun- 
dred and fifty yards run on a scorching September day. 
Next day I saw him again on the track. I had no busi- 
ness to interfere. There was his trainer. The day was 
hot, but lower by several degrees than the day before, 
but too hot for the work the young man was trying to 
accomplish. I had a premonition of disaster, and left 
the grounds. The next day I read that the young man 
had fallen down with a sunstroke. Subsequently he re- 
covered, but his doctor said that his patient's athletics 
were to be postponed to a far distant future. 

If a man feels like " going down,'* take towels, steep 
them in cold water and apply them to the back of the 
head and the back of the neck. If the stroke comes, strip 
him, carry him in the shade, lay him down with head a 
little up, and with a basin, bucket, or dipper, douche 
him with cold water on the head and chest. Send for a 
doctor post-haste. You have done all you can. 

DROWNING. 

A boating man never drowns, so it is believed, but 
awkward men do get out of their boats into the water, 
and occasionally give a great deal of anxiety in the 
efforts made to resuscitate them. 

Methods of treatment to bring back to life those who 
have approached the condition of being drowned, can- 
not be too often printed, because there is the crassest 
ignorance displayed in regard to the proper treatment. 



TRAINING. 239 

A man who is drowned is dead ; but a man can come 
near drowning and yet not- be dead. What is his condi- 
tion ? His flame of life only flickers. Now, suppose 
you had a lantern, with a wick in it, which was barely 
lit. In order to increase the flame, would you swing 
the lantern about ? There is no question but that, if 
you did that, by your rough motions the lamp would 
go out. Careless and brutal movements are never to be 
employed when resuscitation is attempted. 

Anybody who, aX the close of the nineteenth century, 
rolls on a barrel a man taken inanimate from the water, 
is nothing short of a criminal. 

The best method I can find for resuscitation is that 
printed in the " Hints to Travellers,'* published by the 
English Geographical Society. '* Efforts to restore the 
breathing must precede all other means. Remove cloth- 
ing down to the waist, laying the patient on the ground, 
face downward, bending one of his arms under his fore- 
head ; wipe his mouth. If breathing does not then re- 
turn, turn the patient on his side ; stimulate the nostrils 
and rub the chest vigorously. The patient must now 
be replaced briskly on his face, turned back to his side 
and a little beyond, and then briskly back on his face 
again, and repeat this about every four seconds ; each 
time that the patient is on his face, press sharply on 
the back between the shoulder-blades. If unsuccessful 
within five minutes, place patient back with his clothes 
under his shoulders, draw forward the tongue, and attach 
it with an elastic band or cord under the chin. Then 



240 TRAINING. 

Standing behind his head, grasp the arms below the 
elbows, and draw them steadily upward above the head 
to expand the chest, and keep them stretched upward 
for two seconds, then turn down the arms and press 
them firmly for ten seconds against the sides of the 
chest to expel air. Repeat this fifteen times per 
minute.'' 

This treatment is excellent. What you are trying to 
do is to work mechanically on the patient, and induce 
inflation of the lungs. If he breathes, that starts the 
human machinery. 

LINIMENTS. 

Save in a special way, I have not the least faith in 
liniments or embrocations. I am pretty certain that 
trainers who understand their business never use it, 
save for a distinctly local trouble, as of a strained ten- 
don. All such stuff as is printed about the sovereign 
power of this or that liniment, is pure quackery. A 
man in good form never wants any other external appli- 
cations than those which water and soap give. Dr. W. 
L. Savage says in regard to a strain and the use of 
liniment : 

*' It is the friction in rubbing that helps the athlete, 
the liniment playing a small part, although it serves as 
a lubricant and enables the trainer to get hold. But I 
do not believe there is any good derived from the bare 
application of a liniment. The principal compound of 
the various lotions is alcohol, but this having an irritat- 



TRAINING. 241 

ing effect may prove a sort of stimulant, but is merely 
superficial/' 

Some men of experience have advocated the general 
use of camphorated oil, but its advantages are question- 
able. I should rather think camphor would do harm. 
I prefer pure vegetable or animal oils, simply because 
they act as lubricants for the hand of the masseur, 
for, after all, the rubbing down of a man is vigorous 
massage. 

I would advise that the purchase of any compound 
advertised for athletes, with testimonials showing how 
by its use a man won a race, be severely let alone. 
Some years ago, I had a man placed under my charge 
whose skin was badly blotched, the cuticle inflamed, 
from having used a liniment. There really was neither 
poisonous nor irritating substance in the lotion, only 
the skin of the man was over-sensitive. The substances 
useful to a man training when accidents occur, I pre- 
sent. The medicaments are all officinal, and such as a 
doctor would prescribe. 

INDURATING MIXTURES. 
The idea that there is anything which will harden 
the hands, with the exception of work, is nonsense. 
All washes and nostrums are useless. You can color 
your hands blue if you want to, but the blue is only 
skin deep. The true bronze of the hand, with its per- 
fection of epidermis, which never bruises, is only obtain- 
able by exercise. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

THE TRACK— HOW TO MAKE IT. 

Discussions are endless as to the exact form of the 
track, whether it should be circular, parabolic, or ellip- 
tical. The ideal track would be the straight line. A 
curve is an impediment to speed. When the track is 
straight, the ground is made level. Where there are 
curves, the slope begins from the outer to the inner 
edge, and depends for incline on the width of the track. 
The true line is run about eighteen inches from the 
inner edge. Ten inches of digging up the original 
ground is none too much for the making of a track. 
The width ought to be thirty-five feet. You cannot 
have two tracks, one for runners, another for bicycles ; 
but it would be better, if this were possible, because a 
broad track for machines prevents upsets. 

The first thing is to line both sides of the edge of the 
track with timber of fully two inches in width, and this 
timber should be coated with tar. Then coal-ashes, 
with plenty of clinkers, are put on the broad track and 
carefully rammed. To turn a good head of water on 
the first layer and to apply fresh cinders where it sinks, 
insures lasting qualities. After four inches of ashes are 

laid, then comes two inches of loam. Loam containing 

(242) 



TRAINING. 243 

too much clay is not fitted for the purpose; it packs too 
soUdly. This loam should be screened and every pebble 
rejected. It must be rolled flat. It is part of the foun- 
dation of the track. 

You cannot hurry it, and it ought to take a month to 
settle. Finally, the top layer of cinder is put in place. 
I should say that an inch of top cinder is all that is nec- 
essary. It need not be packed. Rolling would hurt it. 
This top dressing receives careful raking arid smoothing 
and natural settling. A track wants constant attention. 
The effect of wind in a certain quarter or of rain may 
make differences. The cinders may accumulate in cer- 
tain places or be too thin in others. 

In such -establishments as maintain a first-class track, 
a superintendent and two helpers find plenty of work. 
The trouble is to keep the track flat in its long stretches. 
It will not do to take advantage of the natural methods 
of road building, such as of making the track rise in the 
middle, so as to drain itself. Patent arrangements of 
covered drains have been used, but I do not think with 
advantage. 

No fencing is admissible. How to do so simple a 
thing as to mark distances on the track has been much 
discussed. Fixed posts are dangerous, not to the run- 
ners, but to the spectators. Bits of stone planted in 
the ground trip up sightseers, and are not to be thought 
of. Whitewash markings on the track are sometimes 
used, but are prone to cause disputes. Pieces of wood, 
not more than four inches square and four feet long, 



\x 



244 TRAINING. 

driven into the ground until flush with the track, with 
the distances branded on the top, will be found useful. 
They should not be, however, on the track, but six 
inches from the outer edge. 

Spent tan bark is not in favor. It makes a dull, 
heavy track. It is not stable. In wet weather it 
holds the moisture too long, and a sharp trial of speed 
may take place just after a rain. Tan bark has its use in 
the making of an impromptu track where lasting qual- 
ities are not required. The best runners think that a tan 
bark hurts the feet more than the firmer, but more 
elastic, cinder track. It is undoubtedly a slow track. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

AXIOMS FOR AMATEUR ATHLETES. 

Defective dissimilation of fat produces obesity. In- 
sufficient combustion of nitrogenous materials induces 
gout. 

Exercise is a regulator. It eliminates what are over- 
growths in our bodies, and increases the stock of what 
is wanted. 

There must be reserve material in the human body. 
How could you run a mile, sending out the manufac- 
tured products by one door, if the raw material did not 
come in at the other ? 

Try and understand the relationship of fat to the 
whole system. When you swallow fatty matter, it is 
not converted into fatty substances. Some fat may be 
absorbed, but the starches make the fats, being first con- 
verted into sugar. You never could destroy all the fat 
in you. If you did that you would be likely to die. 
When a man is emaciated, he may be said to have no fat 
in him. 

A man over-reduced is a man spoiled. You have 
burned all the oil, and nothing is left but the wick. A 
wick alone will give little light. If you do get it to 
flame, it at once burns itself out. 

(245) 



246 TRAINING. 

Muscle IS started from the brain, and there is reflex 
action. Therefore judicious exercise results in brain im- 
provement and body improvement. You can overtax 
muscle and impair brain. • 

Stagnancy of brain from want of work is as common 
as muscular feebleness from want of exercise. Inter- 
stimulation is constant. The brain works the muscles ; 
the muscles work the brain. How, otherwise, could it 
happen that savages can work themselves into a frenzy 
by dancing ? 

Men who are nervously excitable are those who must 
be most careful as to the exercises they take. In such 
cases, with tire of muscle, may come over-excitation of 
brain. 

Fatigue for those who exercise is a matter of temper- 
ament. It may arise because the work to be done has 
not been made automatic. 

No muscle works when it is cold. The stimulation 
or warming of muscle may come from the brain without 
any perceptible movement of the body. 

Fatigue manifests itself early, like hunger. A man 
does not die because he is either fatigued or hungry. 
Fatigue is a premonitory symptom, as is thirst. It 
must claim attention in time. Fatigue, then, is a kind 
of regulator " warning us that we are exceeding the 
limits of useful exercise, and that work will soon become 
dangerous.'* 

Americans are more prone than any other race to nerv- 
ous exhaustion, Methods of life, the drive of business, 



TRAINING. 247 

and great climatic changes bring this about. " Manufac- 
turers and certain classes of railway officials are the most 
likely to suffer nerval exhaustion. Next to these come 
merchants in general, brokers, etc., then as frequently 
clergymen ; still less often lawyers, and more rarely doc- 
tors ; while distressing cases are apt to occur among the 
over-schooled ones of both sexes.*' 

There is every reason to believe that a man can be 
stroke-oar of his boat and win the first academic honors 
in his class. It is good to be ambidexter. 

^' Puddlers and boiler-makers, plumbers and carpen- 
ters, coopers and smiths, shipwrights, carriage-makers, 
tinners, and all who follow trades calling for vigorous 
muscular action, not only constantly work on one side 
more than on the other, but many of their tools are 
purposely right-handed, so that they could hardly use 
them with their left hands if they wanted to. Take 
the mechanic where you will, in the vast majority of in- 
stances, his right arm and side are larger and stronger 
than his left, and quite as often his vocation does little 
or nothing to develop and strengthen his legs.'' — 
Blaikie. 

'* When a man who does not know how to run stops 
short, it is simply a man whose system is under the in- 
fluence of transient intoxication with carbonic acid, re- 
sulting from exercise. A horse urged into a very rapid 
gallop, and forced to run until he drops, dies over- 
worked. The accident which kills it is due to the car- 
bonic-acid gas with which its system is saturated. The 



248 TRAINING. 

man ceases running. No harm comes, because he is his 
own master. In the case of the horse, the animal is not 
his own master.'* — LAGRANGE. 

** I would urgently recommend the man in training to 
rise early. To him who would build up his body in 
health and strength, this would be the corner-stone of 
his edifice. There is in the morning air an ifivigorating 
freshness which is sought in vain at any other period of 
the day.'* — Maclaren. 

*' Most of the training lore that has come down to us 
is of the professional stamp, the outcome of much hard 
and sharp experience, largely diluted with ignorance 
and absurdity.'* — HiLLlER. 

*^ To perform exercise of strength with impunity, the 
food must be sufficiently abundant to supply losses. If 
the food is not sufficiently restorative, the work is done 
at the expense of the materials of the body ; the worker 
succumbs then, and is quickly exhausted." 

** That horse has eleven chances in the ten to win." 

" How eleven in ten ? That is not possible in an 
arithmetical sense." 

'' Yes, it is. The beast and his fine blood stand for 
five, the best oats and hay for two, and then there are 
four more points for his training." — Race Talk. 

Over-forcing is rapid wearing out. 

" Unless a rowing man does other work especially in- 
tended to correct defects, he has invariably poor arms 
above the elbow, a marked inferiority in the develop- 
ment of the chest compared with the b^ck^ and he gen- 



TRAINING. 249 

erally has round shoulders and a forward hang of the 
head and neck;*— PROCTOR. 

Say there are as many members of an athletic club as 
there are letters of the alphabet. Mr. A and Mr. B 
make records. But what of all the rest of the members? 
A and B may be proud of their honors, and have a right 
to feel so. The rest will have to be satisfied with the 
distinction accorded to A and B. But it would have 
been better if there had been four good men instead of 
two, or eight instead of four. What I mean to express 
is this : An athletic club, wishing to do the most good 
to its members, must look rather to general than to 
special excellence. Try and make yourselves good all- 
around men, rather than manufacture isolated stars. 

^' The climatic peculiarities which have changed our 
voices, sharpened our features, and made small the Amer- 
ican hand and foot, have also made us in middle and 
advanced life, a thinner and more sallow race, and pos- 
sibly adapted us better to the region in which we live.*' 
—Dr. S. W. Mitchell. 

*' The exact relations of fatty tissue to the condition 
of health are not yet well understood, but since in great 
exertion or prolonged -mental or nerval strain, or in low 
fevers, we lose fat rapidly, it may be taken for granted 
that each individual should possess a certain surplus of 
this readily lost material." Even thin people have it in 
some quantity, and despite fluctuations, every one has a 
standard share, which varies at different times of life. 

To walk a great d^al in a man'g or a woman'^ middle 



250 TRAINING. 

or later years, is to extend the duration of life. If in 
the large cities means of locomotion, such as cars, were 
non-existent, men and women would live longer. 

It has sometimes been said that in training, an animal 
has advantages over a man, because the animal is forci- 
bly more obedient to the trainer's will. A horse may 
be made to exercise only so much. His feed may be 
given him in exact quantities, and of specified quality. 
But the advantage should all be in favor of the man, 
due to his superior intelligence, for he alone appreciates 
(or ought to appreciate) the laws which govern physical 
development. 

" Of all animals, man is the most susceptible of im- 
provement by means of training, and next to him ranks 
the race-horse. The severity of training is rendered 
comparatively light by a cheerful companion ; one who, 
while enforcing completion of work, encourages and 
diverts the worker. In short, a very important portion 
of the duties of the trainer, is that of always keeping 
the mind as well as the body of his charge profitably 
employed.*'— Haney. 

Draw a sharp line of distinction between exercising 
and training. A child runs, exercises, but does not 
train. Exercise is one of the preparations of training, 
but alone, without other conditions, it f emains only ex- 
ercise. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

DEFINITION OF AN AMATEUR ATHLETE. 

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF AMATEUR ATHLETES OF 

AMERICA. 

An amateur is any person who has never competed 
in an open competition, or for money, or under a false 
name ; or with a professional for a prize, or where gate 
money is charged ; nor has ever at any time, taught, 
pursued, or assisted at athletic exercises for money, or 
for any valuable consideration. But nothing in this 
definition shall be construed to prohibit the competi- 
tion between amateurs for medals, cups, or other prizes 
than money. 

And it is hereby expressly declared that this defini- 
tion is not retroactive, and that all past acts of amateurs 
shall be judged in accordance with the provisions of the 
old definition ; and that the foregoing definition shall 
take effect on and after the first day of May, 1885. 

To prevent any misunderstanding in reading the 
above, the Association draws attention to the following 
explanations and adjudications : 

An athlete has forfeited his right to compete as an 
amateur, and has thereby become a professional, by — 

(a) Ever having competed in an open competition 
(/. ^., a competition, the entries to which are open to all, 

(251) 



252 TRAINING. 

irrespective as to whether the competitors are amateurs 
or professionals, and whether such competition be for a 
prize or not) in any athletic exercise over which this As- 
sociation has declared its jurisdiction. 

{b) Ever having competed for money in any such ath- 
letic exercise. 

{c) Ever having competed under a false name in any 
such athletic exercise. 

{d) Ever having knowingly competed with a profes- 
sional for a prize, or where gate money is charged in any 
such athletic exercise. 

(e) Ever having taught or pursued as a means of live- 
lihood any such athletic exercise. 

(/) Ever having directly or indirectly accepted or re- 
ceived remuneration for engaging in any such athletic 
exercise. 

An athlete shall hereafter forfeit his right to compete 
as an amateur, and shall thereby become a professional, 
if, at any time after the foregoing definition shall take 
effect, he shall — 

(i) Directly or indirectly receive payment for training 
or coaching any other person in any athletic exercise 
over which this Association shall declare its jurisdiction. 

(2) Directly or indirectly receive payment for services 
personally rendered in teaching any such athletic ex- 
ercise. 

(3) Directly or indirectly receive payment for services 
rendered as Referee, Judge, Umpire, Scorer, Manager, 
Director, or in any other capacity, at any profe3siQnaI ex- 



\ 



TRAINING. 253 

hibition or contest of any athletic exercises whatso- 
ever. 

Note. — Nothing herein shall be construed to prohibit 
the acceptance by any amateur of his necessary travel- 
ling expenses incurred by any Referee, Judge, Umpire, 
Scorer, or Starter, in going to and from the place of any 
amateur contest. 

(4) Directly or indirectly run, manage, or direct for 
prospective profit any professional exhibition or contest. 

An amateur shall not hereafter forfeit his right to 
compete as an amateur, and shall not become a profes- 
sional, by — 

{a) Receiving compensation for services rendered as 
ticket-taker or ticket-seller at any contest or exhibition 
of amateur athletics. 

{b) Receiving compensation for services personally 
rendered as Secretary, Treasurer, Manager, or Superin- 
tendent of any amateur athletic club. 

(c) Receiving compensation as editor, correspondent, 
or reporter of, or contributor to any sporting, athletic, 
or other paper or periodical. 

{d) Running, managing, or directing, for prospective 
profit, any sporting, athletic, or other paper or period- 
ical. 

{e) Receiving compensation for services personally 
rendered as official handicapper under the direction and 
authority of the National Association of Amateur Ath- 
letes of America. 

(/) Receiving from a club of which he shall be a mem^ 



254 TRAINING. 

ber the amount of his expenses necessarily incurred in 
travelling to and from the place of any amateur contest. 

AMATEUR ATHLETIC UNION OF THE UNITED STATES. 

" One who has not entered in an open competition ; 
or for either a stake, public or admission money or en- 
trance fee ; or under a fictitious name ; or has not com- 
peted with or against a professional for any prize or 
where admission fee is charged ; or who has not in- 
structed, pursued, or assisted in the pursuit of athletic 
exercises as a means of livelihood, or for gain or any 
emolument ; or whose membership of any Athletic Club 
of any kind was not brought about or does not continue, 
because of any mutual understanding, expressed or im- 
plied, whereby his becoming or continuing a member of 
such club would be of any pecuniary benefit to him 
whatever, direct or otherwise, and who shall in other 
and all respects conform to the Rules and Regulations 
of this Organization." 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

RECORDS. 

The following are the best Amateur Records made in 
America and England, at championship events : 

75-YARDS Run. 

America, 7f seconds. — F. G. Saportas, New York City, Jan. 5, 1878 ; 
A. Ing, New York City, Sept. 14 and Nov. 28, 1878 ; M. McFaul, 
New York City, Jan. 5, 1879 ; H. H. Lee, New York City, April 5, 
1879; L. E. Myers, New York City, Jan. 31, 1881; J. B. White, New 
York City, March 16, 1883. 

loo-YARDS Run. 

* America, 9I seconds, — John Owen, Jr., Washington, Oct. 11, 1890. 
England, 10 seconds. — A. Wharton, London, July 3, 1886. 

150-YARDS Run. 

America, I4f seconds. — C. H. Sherrill, Jr., N. Y. City, May 17, 1890. 
England, 14I seconds. — C. G. Wood, London, July 21, 1887. 



2 20- YARDS Run. 

America, 22 seconds. — ^W. Baker, Boston, June 14, 1886. 

England, 2i| seconds. — C. G. Wood, London, June 25 and July 22, 

1887. 

300-YARDS Run. 

America, 3if seconds. — L. E Myers New York City, Oct. 22, 1881. 
England, 31J seconds. — C G Wood London, July 21, 1887. 



* Not yet allowed by the Amateur Athletic Union. 

(255) 



256 TRAINING. 

440-YARDS Run. 

* America, 47I seconds. — W. C. Downs, Boston, July 9, 1890. 
England, 48 1 seconds. — H. C. L. Tindall, London, June 29, 1889. 

600-YARDs Run. 

America, i:iii. — L. E. Myers, New York City, July i, 1882 ; W. C. 

Downes, New York City, May 17, 1890. 
England, 1:12. — H. C. L. Tindall, Cambridge, March 16, 1889. 

880-YARDS Run. 

America, i:55|. — W. C. Dohm, Travers Island, N. Y., June 29, 1889. 
England, 1:54.— F. J- K. Cross, Oxford, March 9, 1888. 

looo-YARDs Run. 

America, 2:13. — L. E. Myers, New York City, Oct. 8, 1881. 
England, 2:14^. — L. E. Myers, Birmingham, July 19, 1884. 

I -MILE Run. 

America, 4:2if. — W. G. George, New York City, Nov. 11, 1882. 
England, 4:i8f. — W. G. George, Birmingham, June 21, 1884. 

2-MiLES Run. 

America, 9:32^. — W. D. Day, New York City, May 17, 1890. 
England, 9:i7f. — W. G. George, London, April 26, 1884. 

3-MILES Run. 

America, 14:39. — W. D. Day, Bergen Point, N. J., May 30, 1890. 
England, 14:29!. — ^J. Kibblewhite, London, Aug. 31, 1889. 

4-MILES Run. 

America, 2o:i5f.— W. D. Day, Bergen Point, N. J., Nov. 16, 1889. 
England, 19:395. — W. G. George, London, May 17, 1884. 



'' Not yet allowed by the Amateur Athletic Union. 



J^ 



TRAINING. 257 

5-MILES Run. 

America, 25:23!. — E. C. Carter, New York City, Sept. 17, 1887. 
England, 25:07!. — W. G. George, London, July 28, 1884. 

6-MiLES Run. 

America, 31:29!. — E. C. Carter, New York City, Nov. 6, 1886. 
England, 30:27-!. — W. G. George, London, July 28, 1884. 

7-MILES Run. 

America, 36:54. — E. C. Carter, New York City, Nov. 6, 1886. 
England, 35:37. — W. G. George, London, July 28, 1884. 

8-MiLES Run. 

America, 42:19. — E. C. Carter, New York City, Nov. 6, 1886. 
England, 40:57!. — W. G. George, London, July 28, 1884. 

9-MILES Run. 

America, 47:4Tf. — Sidney Thomas, West New Brighton, S. I., Oct. 26, 

1889. 
England, 46:12. — W. G. George, London, April 7, 1884. 

lo-MiLES Run. 

America, 52:38!. — W. D. Day, West New Brighton, S. L, October 26, 

1889. 
England, 51:21. — W. G. George, London, April 7, 1884. 

I -MILE Walk. 

America, 6:29!. — F. P. Murray, New York City, Oct. 27, 1883. 
England, 6:32^. — H. Whyatt, Birmingham, May 3, 1884. 

3-MILES Walk. 

1^ America, 21. 09^ — F. P. Murray, Ne\t York City, Nov. 6, 1883. 
\England, 21:254. — C. W. V. Clarke, London, June 29, 1887. 



258 TRAINING. 

4-MILES Walk. 

America, 29:401. — T. H. Armstrong, New York City, Nov. 6, 1877. 
England, 29:10. — W. H. Meek, London, July 12, 1884. 

2-MiLEs Bicycle. 

America, 5:2if. — W. A. Rowe, Springfield, Oct. 23, 1885, 
England, 5:i2j. — W. A. Illston, Coventry, May 21, 1889. 

120-YARDS Hurdle. 
3 feet 6 inches. 

America, 16 seconds. — H. L. Williams, Morris Dock, N. Y., May 17, 
1890; F. T. Ducharme, Washington, Oct. 11, 1890. 

England, 16 seconds. — C. N. Jackson, Oxford, Nov. 14, 1865 ; W. R. 
Pollock, London, April 18, 1884 ; C. F. Daft, London, July 3, 1886 ; 
S. Joyce, Crewe, June 30, 1888. 

200-YARDS Hurdle. 
3 feet 6 inches. 

America, 26| seconds.-— F. C. Puffer, Boston, April 14, 1890. 

220-YARDS Hurdle. 
2 feet 6 inches. 

America, 25J seconds.— J. P. Lee, Morris Dock, N. Y., May 17, 1890. 

300-YARDS Hurdle. 
America, 37f seconds.— A. F. Copland, New York City, June 18, 1887. 

Running High Jump. 

America, 6 feet 4 inches. — W. B. Page, Philadelphia, Pa., October 7, 

1887. 
England, 6 feet 3} inches. — W. B. Page, Stourbridge, Aug. 15, 1887. 
Indoors, America, 6 feet.— W. B. Page, Philadelphia, Pa., Jan. 23, 

1888, and Baltimore, Md., Dec. 16, 1887. 



/ 



TRAINING. 259 

/■ 
Running Broad Jump. 

* America, 23 feet 3| inches (measured from Scratch Line). — A. F. Cop- 
land, Washington, Oct. 11, 1890. 

England, 23 feet 3 J inches (measured from toe to heel), — E. J. Davies, 
London, March 27, 1873. 

Running Hop, Step, and Jump. 

America, 44 feet io| inches. — ^J. B. Connolly, Boston, Sept. 25, iSgo. 
Great Britain, 48 feet 3 inches. — ^John Purcell, Limerick, Ireland, June 
9, 18S7. 

Standing High Jump. 

America, 5 feet ij inches. — W. Soren, Mott Haven, May 29, 1880. 
Great Britain, 4 feet 10 inches. — F. Hargreaves and E. Moore, Pendle- 
bury, Eng., Aug. 5, 1871. 

Standing Broad Jump. 

America, 10 feet 9} inches. — M. W. Ford, New York City, April 23, 

1885. 
England, 10 feet 5 inches. — ^J. J. Tickle, Manchester, Sept. 2, 1871. 

Pole Vault for Height. 

America, 11 feet 5 inches. — H. H. Baxter, N. Y. City, Oct. 15, 1887. 
England, 11 feet 7 inches. — E. L. Stones, Southport, June 2, 1888. 

Pole Vault for Distance. 
America, 26 feet 4^ inches. — A. H. Green, Boston, April 14, 1890. 

Throwing 5 6-pound Weight for Height. 

America, 15 feet 2 inches. — J. S. Mitchell, Boston, April 14, 1890. 
Great Britain, 13 feet ^ inch. — J. S. Mitchell, Ballylanders, Ireland, 
Oct. 8, 1887. 

Throwing 5 6-pound Weight for Distance. 

America, 32 feet 10 inches. — C. A. J. Queckberner, Washington, Oct. 
II, 1890. 



* Not yet allowed by the Amateur Athletic Union. 



26o TRAINING. 



Putting i 6-pound Shot. 

* America, 46 feet 2 inches. — G. R. Gray, New York City, Sept. 20, 

1890. 
Great Britain, 44 feet loj inches. — J. O'Brien, Dublin, Ireland, July 

II, 1885. 

Putting 24-pouND Shot. 
America, 33 feet 11} inches. — G. R. Gray, Boston, April 14, 1890. 

Throwing i 6-pound Hammer. 

America, 133 feet 8 inches. — ^J. S. Mitchell, Elkton, Md., Oct. 10, 1889. 
Great Britain, 126 feet 4 inches. — P. Lawless, Cork, Ire., Sept. 5, 1889. 



* Not yet allowed by the Amateur Athletic Union. 



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BEALE'S CALISTHENICS AND LIGHT 

Oymnastics for Youngp Folks.— 120 Illustrations 
from Life by Photographic Process, containing Broom and 
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Exercises, Swimming, and Music for marching. This is the 
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MANUAL OF SWEDISH DRILL, based on 
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to the Young Men's Society and Youn^ Men's Christian 
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HOW TO BO WL.— A new and complete man- 
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an entertainment. Our manual has been prepared with the 
assistance of the ablest experts. Within its pages will be 
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Convention of players ; Advice to Beginners ; Instruc- 
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DUMB BELLS, INDIAN CLUB, AND 
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Archery. Muscular Training. Striking-Bag Exercise. The 
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DE VERE'S ORIGINAL LAUGHABLE 

Reeitations in Prose and Poetry. We are pleased to in- 
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book form. No doubt a great many persons have heard these 
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Containing 62 original pieces which cannot be found in any 
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A RITUAL OF THE FIRST THREE 

Deg^rees of masonry, being an authentic and 
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PAYNE'SSOCIAL LETTER WRITER.-Acomplete guide 

and assistant for Polite Correspondence. Containing rules and direc- 
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BILLY EDWARDS' ART OF BOXING, AND 

Iflannalof Atbletic Training; Illustrated.— This work will 
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valuable hints and points to the proficient. The course of training 
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HOFFMAN'S TRICKS WITH CARDS^ containmgaU the 
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other, to throw a card. Large octavo volume containing 142 pages, with 
handsome paper cover. Price 50ct8. 

ALBUM OF FANCY ALPHABETS-A practical work for 
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of Haney^s Fancy Alphabets which sold at 50 cents each number. 
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THE WATCH AND HOW TO i^EPAIR IT.-ContainB 
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lever watches ; Irostini?, snailing, forms of teeth of wheel-, crown wheel-*, 
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PAYNE'S RULES OF ORDEf?, an a B C Guide to Parlia^ 
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PAYNE'S BUSINESS LETTER WRITEF (VND 
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JIOYLE'S O AMES.— -A newr.iid complete authority on all games 
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FITTER'S BOOK OF MOCK TRIALS. -An entirely novel 
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DE VERE'S WIT, HUMOR, PATHOS, AND PARO- 

dies,— Being a new and original collection of the author's best efforts 
in the field of wit, humor, and pathos. These beautiful selections have 
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THE COMPLETE DEBATER -Containing Debates Out- 
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DUNBAR'S COMPLETE HANDBOOK OF ETI- 

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POEMS OF GEO. R. SIMS, author of -The Life Boat " -Ostler 
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